Tag: comet
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Late October Sky: Comets and More | An Spéir Déanach i mí Dheireadh Fómhair: Cóiméid agus Níos Mó
Today, we will be looking at the sky for the second half of the month of October and we’re going to start in the morning, rather than at sunset as we usually do. Looking at the sky in the southeast before sunrise on the 17th, the planets Jupiter and Venus are prominently visible. It is…
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Comets in October: 3I/ATLAS and C/2025 A6 Lemmon!
Today, we are going to take a look at a couple of comets, including the interstellar comet 3I ATLAS. However, we’re going to start with a comet that was discovered much earlier this year, Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon. From the first part of the name, C/2025, we know this was a comet that was discovered…
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Cóiméad F2 SWAN agus a Nuacht | Comet F2 SWAN and its News
Today we will be looking for a comet, a massive rock in space, the comet C/2025 F2 SWAN. You may have noticed that the attached video is in irish, and I did toy with the idea of calling SWAN, the Solar Wind ANisotropies instrument, “ealla”, the Irish word for swan. However, this is an acronym,…
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Putting Comet 2025 F2 (SWAN) in Stellarium
Today, we are going to be taking a look for and at a new comet. The comet in question was discovered quite recently, just last month in March. The comet is called C/2025 F2 (SWAN). That’s C/ for “comet” and 2025 because it was discovered in 2025, that part is nice and easy of course.…
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The December Solstice: Winter or Summer?
Today we will continue looking at the upcoming December solstice, as it is now just a couple of days away. However, we are also going to look at the solstice from the equator and from the southern hemisphere. Here in the northern hemisphere we are looking at the winter solstice. From Ireland, the Sun is…
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November Meteors and Comet S1 Atlas Update
Today we will be looking ahead at the meteor showers that are coming up in November as well as quickly revisiting the Greatest Elongation of Mercury and taking a quick look at what could have been with Comet C/2024 S1 ATLAS. Mercury will reach its greatest eastern elongation later this month, meaning it will be…
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An Spéir ar Oíche Shamhna! / The Sky on Halloween!
For this piece we will be looking at the sky for Halloween, and a little bit into November as well. The attached video is in Irish, but with English subtitles if you need them. As such, a couple of things do get lost in translation. The Irish for Halloween is “Oíche Shamhna” or Samhain Night.…
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October’s Pair of Comets: 2023 A3 and 2024 S1
Today, we are finally going to deal with the comets that are visible at the moment. Depending on where you are and whether or not you use a telescope, these comets have technically been visible for a while. Now that they are coming up to their best and visible to the naked eye, we are…
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Asteroids and Comets, What makes them Different?
In today’s piece we are going to talk a little bit about asteroids and a little bit about comets. Firstly however, in the most recent piece I showed off some of the basic features of Stellarium, it was more of a walk through of the different kinds of things that Stellarium can do than an…
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Looking Forward: Comet Halley in 2061 and Mercury’s Transit in 2032
As promised last time, we are going to be looking far ahead into the future to take a look at Halley’s Comet. Halley’s Comet has a period of about 75 years, though this varies due to the planets effect as it passes them. Right now, we have to wait 37 years for it to return…
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