Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko - First amateur images 2014

As the European Space Agency's Rosetta Mission ramps up in a busy week of astronomy, Observatory W96 and Observers A. Maury, J.-G Bosch, J.-F. Soulier were the first amateurs to report positions of 69P (this apparition) to the MPC. Amateur images of Comet 67P have also been acquired by the Professional-Amateur Collaboration in Astronomy (PACA) for comet 67P led by Dr Padma Yanamandra-Fisher in partnership with Amateur Astronmers. The PACA group uses social media to connect amateur and professional astronomers to provide observation follow-up, monitoring and collaboration on science missions.

Comet 67P is about to be visited by the Rosetta Probe and ESA released their first photos, 2 weeks ago, of the comet starting to come to life as it heads on in towards the sun. The Rosetta mission is to follow the comet round the sun during the part of its orbit where the ices and dusts begin to discharge and form the tail. In november 2014, Rosetta will deliver a landed named Philae that will touch down on the nucleus of the comet to sample the particles as they become active.

Pictured here at a very faint magnitude 21.2 you can see Comet 67P, and the position of the Rosetta spacecraft is also marked (even though it is way too faint to see). ESA this week began a number of engine burns to slow the spacecraft as it approaches the comet.

The star field is quite crowded, and one of the most interesting parts of the video is the amount of "traffic" in this part of the sky. There were about 6 clearly identifiable asteroids in the full field of view, I have labelled a couple of the closer ones for reference. One asteroid in the field of view caught my eye as it seemed to dip in brightness, so it has been noted for further follow up as it approaches opposition in July.

Capturing the comet at such a faint magnitude required a deep "stacking" of images to account for the movement of the comet. "Stacking" is a process used to add a number of images together to improve the signal to noise ratio of the target. The comet was travelling so slowly relative to our point of view that I was able to resolve it with 12x300 second images. These images were then stacked in three groups of 4 at the movement of the comet - 0.16arc"/min at a position angle of 226 degrees. My images were quickly followed up by Rolando Ligustri, Bacci Paolo Backman. The astrometry (positional information) was included in MPEC 2014-K54

Previously in 2012, amateurs using the the Faulkes Telescopes had photographed 67P at aphelion (its furtherest point from the sun), also a remarkable effort!. In January 2014 the large telescopes in Chile, European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) recovered 67P and have been following it regularly, this was the first occasion that amateurs had obtained images on this apparition.

For more information about the program check out the Year of Southern Comets article at iTelescop.net. PACA has a Facebook and Flikr group for members and a website under construction, it is open to any amateur astronomers who have their own telescope, are familiar with photometry and astrometry, are members of iTelescope.net, or have access to other telescope facilities and are prepared to work as a team on the science effort.

The Rosetta Spacecraft was named after the Rosetta Stone which assisted historians and archeologists decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs, scientists hope that in the same way the data gathered will assist in our understanding of the early solar system.

Faster meets further!

Technology is awesome. It constantly amazes us, the shiny, the newest, the sleekest, the most advanced, the greenest, all point to our fascination to push the boundaries.

Human ingenuity, vision, ideation, all drive each of us in different ways. Passion and emotion often over-ride commonsense and process. Fast cars, expensive toys, remote destinations, are also often the domain of James Bond films.

So trick question.......what do fast cars, great design, astronomy and James Bond films have in common........
P A R A N A L !!!!!


The European Southern Observatory (ESO) tapped into all of these emotions with a unique blend of the fastest and the furtherest, an electric super car and the world's most productive optical telescope - both impressive structures that evoke our emotion and passions.

So some history here for the movie buffs may assist set the scene.

Who could forget the Aricabo Radio Telescope arising out of the "CGI lake" in the James Bond movie Goldfinger, water draining away every where, only to contact a satellite to laser a few cities before being blown to bits by the hero and his beautiful assistant.

Then more recently in Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig in the lead role - Superspy meets beautiful woman, and on their first date find, yet again, another evil villain holed up in a Telescope control room that must be instantly dispatched with lots of special effects. Is it any wonder that astrophysicists are developing a complex and have to watch "Big Bang Theory" for therapy. Quantum of Solace (a very "sciencey" name) was filmed at ESO's Paranal site.



Daniel Craig described Paranal as "a very special place" and that goes some way to highlighting why you might find a group of telescopes there. The structures of Telescopes are imposing, impressive and unique and provide the essential backdrop for the action scenes in action movies.

Now when we talk about renewable technology, we are not talking about billion dollar telescope sites be blown up on James Bond film sets and then being open for the pressing business of Astrophysics the next day......but Mr Bond does likes his fast cars - now he can have an electric one.

The supercar, has also often drawn the same emotions out of the alpha-male, though this time its not the "racing green color" but racing green endurance. This week the ESO brought them both together for a unique opportunity.

Speed versus distance.

There they were - two pieces of highly advanced technology side by side in all their glory. The worlds fastest ELECTRIC supercar and the most productive ground based observatory. The "renewable" film set and the renewable energy super car. Enough of the parallels and metaphors.....it was just plain gorgeous!!


The ESO team described their exciting day as follows: "The SRZero electric supercar arrived at Paranal on October 27 after touring the Pan-American Highway from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay and on their way to Ushuaia. The Racing Green Endurance (RGE) adventure could not have been complete without a stop at Paranal, where the RGE team had the opportunity to observe the fascinating southern skies under the best conditions and test the supercar’s limits by performing at an altitude of 2600 metres above sea level."

So what's the science angle here. The ESO also today shared some of their finest work "on wheels" with some of the deepest ever images of spiral galaxies taken with the HAWK-I camera on the VLT (very large telescope). These infra-red shots of these very distant spiral galaxies weren't just released to seed inspirational new designs for mag wheels for super cars, they also show the various types and stages of galaxy development. HAWK-I stands for High-Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager and is highly sensitive in the infra-red range.



So this week we saw the best set of wheels on earth and in the heavens. Thanks to the folks at the ESO and their imaginative marketing, drawing our attention to the best of breed technologies, and tapping into our passion for the shiniest, boldest, and contrasting it with the grandest and most majestic.

Photo Credits: ESO/ H.H. Heyer
ESO/ Glenn Arcos & www.racinggreenendurance.com
Source ESO Used with permission.