Can Kstars or Stellarium show Comet Ison?

Stellarium can if you update the database
(i am using the current source build )

Celestia can with my SPICE add on
http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalo...?addon_id=1639

the early stages of a forum section on using SPICE
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewforum.php?f=18


you do need to build the QT version from SVN
( very simple ) there is a *.pro file for qt-creator

install cspice ( the C code version )
http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/toolkit.html
then
use the qt .pro file
or
see:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Celesti...Linux_platform

and install my add on
it is using the NAIF spice orbital data ( accurate to within about 25 Meters or so )


some shots from my add on
C/2012 S1 ( found BY the ISON group )
from the view point of Curiosity rover at Gale crater
https://picasaweb.google.com/1026959...eat=directlink

from Detroit the other morning
http://imgbox.com/g/zZhFjR7nRL
-- screen shot of the 3d mesh i created for the add on
http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalo..._van_Vliet.jpg


ubuntu for some odd ( very odd ????? ) reason split Celestia up into a free and NON free
EVEN THOUGH everything IS GPL2
and as i recall used a antique 1.6 and 5+ years old version
so DO NOT !!!!!! install the ubuntu deb !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
spice support IS NOT BUILT IN !!!!!!!!!

Thanks!Fantastic photos!
Wonder what your 3D image will look like after Ison swings around the sun? A bit wonky I reckon.

At the mo I don't have any comet data. Kstars got a time out when trying to get it from jpl. Probably because I'm in China! I'm quite near the Purple Mountain in Nanjing, but I don't suppose they'll let me peek through their telescope! Any way a cold front from the NE has covered the sky in grey. Hope things are clearer for the 1st December. I'll try and get it working, but I'm not much use at computering!

Thanks again!

no the mesh will not look " wonky"
the tail will always point away from the sun and the comet nucleus is coded to do a random "PrecessingRotation" based on the orbit path

This was interesting. Saw it a few weeks ago.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365124349/

Well actually, I just meant to indicate, that the actual comet may get half boiled away, or even explode after getting that close to the sun, and therefore not look so neatly rounded. Should your model attempt to reproduce this, then lopsidedness may be a feature.

Nice video! Thanks.

At it's current rate of loss it will take 25 YEARS to evaporate

so unless it dose break up
the basic ( and unknown ) shape will not change much in the nest 2 months

Or when it smacks into the earth?

it is NOT going to hit the earth

as c/2012 s1 passes the sun and is returning to the outer solar system NORTH of the ecliptic plane , way above the orbital plane of the planets .

so far above the orbit of the earth that there is a ZERO chance of it hitting us

three views
front , side and top down

http://imgbox.com/g/TmGuPc7DyF

the red line is the orbit of the comet and the blue lines are the orbits of the planets

RIP Ison (Rest in Pieces)

Reports of my demise may have been premature...

http://imgur.com/MpMLDLh

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov//data...48_c2_1024.jpg

Just can't trust the BBC anymore! Will we see it blazing in our skies soon?

BTW I often use etymonline.com I sent Douglas Harper, the author of etymonline, the excerpt from William Cowper's poem which you have there, well, a bit before your excerpt as well, as an example of 'bent', an Old English word for a kind of grass. He was very pleased, and remarked that he had assumed he was the only person who ever read William Cowper. He may use the quote as an illustration.

1 members found this post helpful.

i just got home from dinner ( turkey day here in Michigan )

" The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated "

well being a "sungraser" it did loose a bit of weight

but
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/...024/latest.jpg
leaving the sun
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5480/1...20b425d7_o.gif

an animation - approach through departure
http://spaceweather.com/images2013/2.../rip_anim5.gif

so Something of the nucleus did survive perihelion

Yes, but it is not just the BBC.

Drama! The sky is falling! The comet was swallowed by the sun! But little regard for truth in any form, even simple, obvious scientific truth such as the obvious image of the comet emerging from its pass by the sun.

Glad to hear that there are still some who appreciate Cowper, thanks for noting that! He has been a life long favorite of mine.

The period and place produced a more or less unique confluence of language, knowledge, idea and emotion, and life, of which Cowper's works are a notable example.

It was poetry, but it was very much more than the meter and the words, to me at least.

If you will indulge another example, while it is in mind, also from The Task:

'To walk with God, to be divinely free,' Sounds like Buddhism to me. Maybe you would like to read the Platform Sutra from Hui Neng. Cowper's poetry has this background feeling of a different kind of truth.

Have we strayed from the topic? Is that a mandatory death sentence??