Daniel, wouldn't you prefer to see a nice naked-eye comet? I would. -- Joe ------------------------------ On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 9:33 AM MDT daniel turner wrote:

Not dreary to me at all.    I note that the science in this article was done with a C11 which is within the reach of many amateurs.   The light curve with it's phase angle dependency and the weakness of the emission lines pointing to a mainly dusty coma, This is the science of astronomy and with comets it unfolds quickly.  I also enjoy the physical shape of the orbit and visualizing it on the canvas of the celestial sphere.    It takes decades for data to turn into information in other branches of astronomy like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.  And meteors and auroras are here and gone too quickly to hold much of my interest.  Comets happen at a "people pace" that holds my interest over many months.    As for the cycle of hype/disappointment:  I've learned to ignore it.  It's like watching the same Wagner opera over and over again.  People will over hype it and others will complain bitterly.  The comet doesn't care and neither do I.   DT  

On Tuesday, October 15, 2013 12:49 AM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com> wrote:

More dreary news about "the comet of the century." It may not even reach naked-eye brightness. -- Joe

On Monday, October 14, 2013 8:18 PM, "respuestas2013@gmail.com" <respuestas2013@gmail.com> wrote:

  Hi all: I have just finished updating the secular light curves in the R and Visual bands. I have added a new Section of Magnitude Prediction.  The law that comes out of the plots is 

m(Visual)(Delta,R,0) = 8.12 + 5 Log Delta + 2.40 Log R + 0.01 Alpha

where Delta is the distance Comet-Earth, R the distance Comet-Sun and Alpha the phase angle.  It is rather surprising to find a phase dependence of the coma because a coma made up of only gas would not show such an effect.      That is why I concluded a few days ago, that the light from the coma was dominated by the dust and not by the gas.  This has now been confirmed. Christian Buil took a spectrum of the comet and it is difficult to discern the atomic lines.  The spectrum is mostly continuum.

 http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/comet/ison/obs.htm

   You will notice that the slope is very very shallow, 2.4 which implies n=0.97, almost flat.  In fact both plot suggest that the comet is leveling off.  From past experience (that is comets Hönig, LINEAR, Tabur and Elenin), we know that after the comet levels off in brightness it disintegrates in a matter of day or hours.       If the comet exhibits a leveling off in three data sets, I will issue the  RED ALERT.   The comet is now in ORANGE ALERT.    As suggested by the plots, this point may not be far away.  Do not believe me.  Go to the plots and reach your own conclusion.  I am now working on the other data sets.       Another conclusion from the plots is that the comet will not even reach to naked eye magnitude.  Sorry folks.    Disruption will be manifested by an elongation of the coma increasing  with time.  That corresponds to the debris spreading along the orbit.   Thus observers should watch for a change in morphology of the coma.     At this moment it is of the outmost importance that observations be made every clear night and that they be reported as soon as possible.  I am updating the page daily.  It is hard work, believe me.  Here is the full report:

 http://astronomia.udea.edu.co/cometspage

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