Nikon Binoculars for Comet Ison. (1 Viewer)

henry link said:

Brock,

Things are not looking too good for ISON today. See here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/comets-ml/conversations/topics/22461

But, since the death certificate hasn't been officially signed it might pull through yet.

If there's still a comet to see on Thanksgiving Day the finder chart below should be useful. For those of us in the eastern US the 1 PM PST position will be at 4 PM EST and I think the chart should be tilted clockwise for us (maybe 20-30º), so the comet should be N to NNW of the sun. If it's there it might be shining at about magnitude -5 or -6, so much too dim to be seen with a solar filter. I plan to take my chances standing just inside the sun's shadow from a sw corner of a building.

Henry

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will try between 2 and 3 p.m. The problem is that the sun is so low in the sky by that time that the tree line might be in the way of the house. I might have to pull the car around front and use it to shield the sun by putting the fold out sun "visor" in the back window. This might be my last chance to see it before it breaks up.

Brock

Brock,

That will be too early. Notice that the chart warns against looking for it before 1 pm Pacific Time, 4 PM Eastern Time. Your local sunset time probably gives you a pretty short window Thursday afternoon.

if you want to follow ISON in real time as it approaches the sun you can download images from the SOHO orbiting observatory here.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/

Henry

This is Sky & Telescope's "Comet ISON Update Page":

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/Comet-ISON-Updates-193909261.html?jh

Today they are saying activity has picked back up, so.... Stay tuned.

. Hi Brock,
there have been many days in recent months where I have seen sunspots with the protected unaided eyes using the correct filters.

Here are a recent selection.

For instance 2013 November 15 I estimated using protected unaided eyes only the sunspot near the left limb at 55 arc seconds penumbral diameter. It was seen instantly in perfect conditions.
November 19 72 arc seconds very large terribly easy. this was a massive sunspot and photos suggest it was actually 69 seconds so I wasn't far out in my estimate using just my protected unaided eyes.
November 21 approximately 60 arc seconds not very good conditions.

I have been following sunspots with protected unaided eyes for decades.

A person with very good eyesight who is skilled and who has exactly the right filtration can normally see sunspots down to 34 arcseconds. Some people can get down to 20 or less. Even those with poorer eyesight should manage 60 arc seconds. but skill as well as good eyesight is important and the filter must be exactly the right density.

Venus in transit is 60 arc seconds and is usually very easy for those with good eyesight.
I have seen Mercury with a genuine three times coated modern opera glass with the correct front filtration transiting the sun when it had a diameter of 12 arc seconds.

Nobody should try this type of observation unless they know exactly what they are doing as your eyes have to last you your whole life and it is not worth taking risks with them.

Solar filters for visual use reduce the sunlight over the whole spectrum i.e. ultraviolet visible and infrared by about 100,000 times. So of course you are not going to see a comet with a solar filter. you should just be able to see the tungsten filament of a 60 W bulb. Although these are getting scarce nowadays with low-energy lighting.

The Mercury camera makers in the US I think they were called Universal manufacturing corporation or something like that had as one as their inventions a device for looking near the sun and discerning faint objects near it and I don't think this was ever used in practice. It might for instance have been useful in dogfights in World War II with aircraft coming out of the sun. I have a distant recollection that it was something to do with phosphorus but I may be remembering wrongly.
I've have one of these half frame Mercury cameras and it is great fun with sector shutters. One of the USA original fascinating designs. we managed the Purma camera with a gravity shutter which was equally oddball.

Anyway good luck with the comet and be careful with the sun.

Well it seems ISON didn't survive its encounter with the Sun. Feeling kinda sad about it today too. Was really hoping it would live up to the early hype of being a bright naked eye object in the holiday skies.

As I woke early, I made the mistake of going outside (in a heavy frost - nippy in my pyjamas) at 5.30 a.m. this morning to look for the comet. I should have read up on it first!
Did you see it's 'obituary' from NASA? Quite amusing. It's quoted in the link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/02/comet-ison-is-dead_n_4371817.html

It would seem that Nikon was not the only one to try to capitalize on Comet Ison. I just found out yesterday that Celestron also came out with Comet Ison binoculars.

Regarding Nikon "capitalizing" on Comet Ison:

Is there something inherently wrong with trying to take advantage of a rare astronomical event like the visitation of a comet by selling to the public reasonably priced tools, like binoculars, that will help make the public more aware of astronomical phenomena, and incidentally, the value of dark skies in enjoying them?

Are these celestial events to be kept private, if possible, from the Hoi Polloi or the "great unwashed" as not worthy of them?

Bob

I think you were reading too much into my comment Bob.

That's why I worded it the way I did!

Bob

. What is unfortunate is that the media promote unsustainable expectations about astronomical events, comets included.
When the actuality disappoints, as it more often than not does, then I as an astronomer feel that the public is being shortchanged.
Even less experienced amateur astronomers are given unrealistic expectations.
It is only rarely that comets are actually awesome even in a dark sky. This happens about once a decade.
Having seen as many as 100 comets unfortunately none have been truly spectacular.
Part of the reason is of course the overwhelming light pollution that perhaps half of the world's population now experience.
If you are lucky to live in a place which has very dark skies then by all means seek out potential bright comets that probably occur once a year.
But those living in cities and towns may never see a really bright comet in their lifetimes.
By all means let binoculars makers take advantage of astronomical events to promote astronomy and the use of binoculars.
It is probably astronomers themselves who should rein in the media. and most newspapers make a complete mess of most things scientific. Some of their statistics or figures are often 1000 times too big or too small and mistake free articles are almost non-existent if they are written by general journalists.

I mean, good non-astronomer friends were all talking to me about comet Ison which might as well not have existed as they were not going to see it because it was damp squid.

Comet Lovejoy was much better than Ison, and at no time did I expect comet Ison to deliver.
I would say that the odds were 10 to 1 against its being a spectacular comet. it performed exactly as I thought it would.

I don't believe that Nikon's effort, if that is what it was, to sell these binoculars for use in seeing Ison ever extended beyond it's website. Had they started doing it earlier the binocular's they advertised might have helped to locate it before it got near the sun. It was too late with too little.

Bob

Along that line of thinking, what is the next comet to grace our skies...at least from a fairly observable perspective, pun intended.



If we know that then maybe we will know what the next line of binoculars will be called.

. Dear Frank,
there are lists of known comets which will appear in the next few years numbering in the tens perhaps.
However, it is the unknown or undiscovered comet that can become very bright.
In the past these were discovered by individuals either professional, semiprofessional or amateur astronomers. These are individuals who seek out comets in dark skies and who know the sky intimately with all the fuzzy objects which are mistaken for comets.
This is why the Messier list was made. And then later large lists of thousands of galaxies, globular clusters, nebulae and other objects which are non-stellar in telescopes.
These comets were discovered either visually or later photographically. But nowadays automatic searches are made which discover asteroids and comets. Sometimes it is difficult to know whether the object is an asteroid or comet.

At least you get your name on a comet if you discover it but nowadays there are a fewer individuals doing this.

So the next bright comet's name could be anything from an individual to a search program.

Occasionally, comets have been discovered by accident such as when testing a new telescope but these are complete flukes although the individual has known exactly what he was looking at when he saw it.

And many comets in the past were discovered using binoculars such as 25×105 World War II Zeiss binoculars I think using triplet objectives. Also with 20×60 Soviet binoculars. And later Fujinon 25×150 or 40×150 which the Japanese in particular favoured.

So if you get your comet seeking telescope or large binocular out the next bright comet might have your name on it.


Maybe the 25×105 were also by Emil Busch also although I recollect that the objectives might be by Zeiss?

Yuji Hyakutake, an amateur astronomer, was using 6" binoculars when he discovered the comet named for him in 1996.

I took some excellent timed night landscape photos of it as it "streaked" by Polaris directly over a tall pine tree in my back yard. I used my OM-1, a 24mm lens, and 800 ASA analog film on a tripod. It was a nice dark night and they came out well.

For a so called "small" comet it probably did more to popularize astronomy since Halley's comet's appearance in 1910.

Comets are like Real Estate. It is all Location, Location and Location!:t::king:

Bob

I think some clarification is in order Bob.

For one, "6 inch binoculars"? A since diameter objective? What does that translate into in mm's?

Second, I now know how some folks must feel when they see all the numbers and terminology that we use as common place when referencing binoculars and spotting scopes. OM what? 800 ASA who?

. I presume that the 6 inch binoculars were 150 mm Fujinon binoculars.
OM-1 is the Olympus classic 35mm film camera.
ASA is more or less the same as ISO and 800 ASA was a fast film.

Comet Hyakutake although it was very impressive from the dark countryside from major cities it was almost invisible. I saw it on many nights but only because I knew what I was looking for.

Yes. I believe the binoculars were Fujinon 150mm. I saw a picture of him with the binoculars in an astronomy magazine. They were impressive. (And expensive even almost 20 years ago.) From where I live in Pennsylvania you didn't have to drive very far to see it but it was only visible at it's best for a short time when it looped around Polaris. I was lucky. I have one picture blown up to 18" x 24". (I'm not converting that to millimeters!)

I still have the Olympus OM 1 and a number of good lenses for it. It is a manual camera. Even more manual now since you can't get batteries for it's exposure meter any more. I haven't used it in many years.

It's hard to believe that youngsters like Frank don't know what ASA means. Only 18 years into the digital age of camera's and you'd think we were talking about the Model T of camera's when we mention an OM 1!

Don't worry Frank. That camera will still work when the one in your cell phone goes down along with everything else when radiation from a solar outburst stops everything else on Earth. We will just have to find some analog 35mm film for it.

Bob

. 800 ASA (American standards Association) is the same as 30° DIN or 700 GOST (soviet union). these were all in common usage not very long ago.
This is now ISO 800/30°.

I have also come across in the past H and D film speeds.
Also Scheiner which was then surpassed by DIN.
BSI a British system was similar to DIN i.e. a logarithmic system rather than linear.
Then there was the Weston which is fairly common being used I think in their exposure meters.
Although I haven't directly used the General Electric system I think that an old American exposure meter that I had was marked in these measurements.

What amazes me is that now some digital cameras, professional ones, peak at 204,000 ISO. and I think that Sony said they could go higher if they want or if there is a demand.

Confusing! You bet.

. You can get the Olympus OM-1 exposure meter working properly by using Wein batteries which I think are used in hearing aids although they don't last very long but they are readily available.
There are also adapters that convert 1.5 V silver oxide batteries to the required 1.35 V of the old mercury batteries.
There are actually some people who still have these mercury batteries for sale although they were dropped for environmental reasons. I have a few that actually still work.

I used to be able to estimate exposures by eye to about half a stop when I used my film cameras but I'm not so accurate nowadays.

In the UK the Small battery company keeps stocks for the most unusual batteries. I have no connection with them except as a satisfied customer.