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SOHO Sungrazing comets


LunarLights58

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1 hour ago, LunarLights58 said:

I think it would be nice to talk about comets as seen by SOHO, since they are being seen by a spacecraft designed to look at the Sun, and they are somewhat useful when observing the solar wind by looking at how their tails move around. Check out this one currently within the latest LASCO C2 images.

 image.png.6b899ce44a2620a29ae23c789235bd75.png

That’s a cool pic. I notice Spaceweather.com did a feature on this. They are not sure if it will burn up or live to battle the sun again…and yes anything that moves into the field of view of the Lasco camera will be captured.

N.

Edited by Newbie
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On 2/18/2024 at 1:56 PM, Jesterface23 said:

That is Mercury.

2024-transits.jpg

Wow!  I didn’t realise we have a viewable transit of Venus coming up this summer! @Jesterface23  thanks for posting the graphic!  
I probably won’t make the next opportunity in 243 years…haha. 

Edited by hamateur 1953
Checked timelines
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2 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Wow!  I didn’t realise we have a viewable transit of Venus coming up this summer! @Jesterface23  thanks for posting the graphic!  
I probably won’t make the next opportunity in 243 years…haha. 

Wonder where on Earth, if anywhere, it’s visible.  SOHO is certainly far from Earth, the positioning could be different 

Upon looking it up it seems that is indeed the case, we won’t get a transit of Venus until 2117.  Long wait.

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18 minutes ago, Sam Warfel said:

Wonder where on Earth, if anywhere, it’s visible.  SOHO is certainly far from Earth, the positioning could be different 

I found an excellent article that answers your question @Sam Warfel I will post on an edit shortly here.  Mike  Strange. The Wikipedia wont link. Anyway you should be able to view yourselves with a simple search string “ Transit of Venus. “ 

Edited by hamateur 1953
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3 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Wow!  I didn’t realise we have a viewable transit of Venus coming up this summer! @Jesterface23  thanks for posting the graphic!  
I probably won’t make the next opportunity in 243 years…haha. 

I briefly wondered the same after looking at that graphic as well, because we definitely don't have any such viewable transit upcoming, at least not from Earth.

But the answer is of course, as should be obvious from the direction it's moving in across SOHO, that it's passing behind Sol rather than in front of it.

I haven't checked to see if it would ever be realistic to capture a transit from SOHO that wouldn't be visible from Earth, but it should be fairly easy to work out with some basic geometry; but in that case I strongly suspect the transit would be only be visible from SOHO near the very top or bottom of the visible disc, otherwise it'd be visible from Earth too. In this case it actually seems to cut straight through the middle as seen from Earth too (checked with Stellarium), but again sadly on the opposite side from us.

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Check Wikipedia @Philalethes  you will likely be as surprised as I was.  I was aware, of course of the coupled pair transits, but the eight years since last have passed too quickly indeed.  Haha.   Or we can all wait to see if it obstructs our views of a favorite active region to call out Wikipedia on an incendiary error I suppose.  Haha. Honestly, I will defer to the astronomical community here. My eight inch newtonian is still gathering dust in my garage….  I definitely need new glasses.  Its still a cool article to read.  Missed em both!!  Last was 2020. We were a bit preoccupied in the states with an election if my memory is correct.  

Edited by hamateur 1953
Wrong again. Haha
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37 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Check Wikipedia @Philalethes  you will likely be as surprised as I was.  I was aware, of course of the coupled pair transits, but the eight years since last have passed too quickly indeed.  Haha.   Or we can all wait to see if it obstructs our views of a favorite active region to call out Wikipedia on an incendiary error I suppose.  Haha. Honestly, I will defer to the astronomical community here. My eight inch newtonian is still gathering dust in my garage….  I definitely need new glasses.  Its still a cool article to read.  Missed em both!!  Last was 2020. We were a bit preoccupied in the states with an election if my memory is correct.  

The last two transits of Venus were in 2004 and 2012; the next one will be in 2117 and 2125. Not sure if you had already figured that out by now based on your comment, heh.

But as I mentioned, you can see it on the direction Venus is moving in on the graphic, since as an inferior planet it orbits faster than we do, and thus will move from left to right when it passes in front and from right to left when it passes behind. Superior planets will naturally always pass behind from our view, but will move from left to right as they do so instead, since we're orbiting faster than them.

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12 hours ago, Sam Warfel said:

Ha, missed that! Thanks PB!

You’re not the only one Sam.  I overlooked the dates in my excitement and concern about something blocking our views of regions!! Haha!! 

Edited by hamateur 1953
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10 hours ago, Sam Warfel said:

Ha, missed that!

Heh, you and me both. I had to go into Stellarium to check for myself, and only when I saw Venus disappear behind the visible disc did I realize how "obvious" it was; not so obvious after all!

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