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Comet C/2011 W3 Lovejoy is the first Kreuz-family "suicide-into-the-Sun" comet observed from the ground (= not discovered by a satelite looking at the Sun) since 1970 thanks to the amazingness of Terry Lovejoy.
The story behind this comet is immense and I have been lucky to be a small part of it, you can read a lot of deailts on it on a dedicated page set by the SOHO and STEREO people :
http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=news/birthday_comet
If people are interested, I can make later a short writeup about what does it take to take the first ever ground-based CCD photometry of a Sun-grazing comet in history, but...
... but right now it is not the time to talk, but to watch! The comet is already in the field of view of SOHO:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/
Sadly, the images are not updated - but lulckily it is because they are observing the comer MORE and have sacrifiiced the real-timedness for MORE images.
The SDO has also prepared a campaing, they will actually move the satelite to look at the comet instead of the Sun in an hour. Watch live:
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/lovejoy.php
This comet has really brought me a lot of excitement in the last week. It is an amazing feeling to "be there" when something amazing is happening. The pictures we took are now featured at spaceweather.com and space.com. As a special treat for TL readers, I provide you with the link to the fullres (5 MB) version of the pictures from 6,7,8,10 and 11 Dec (left to right). Please, click it only if you are interested, do not kill my bandwidth, thanks 
http://ccd.wz.cz/w3.jpg
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SOHO has some updated images. The comet is well inside C2, only tail is left in C3. SDO should show some images in 10 minutes.
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pretty sweet! thanks for sharing!
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This is awesome. Thank you for the pictures and the story. I can't imagine how much hard work this represents. You are my hero.
+ Show Spoiler +Wish I could phrase this better, but seriously, so cool!
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The SDO trick worked, they are now looking a little left from the Sun. First images are here, choose at the yellow Sun at the top of the list. But no comet yet there.
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Yes, now it is there quite clear. I really imagined it very differently
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whooohooo our sun is sexy dear lord
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It's very nice, thanks for sharing it with us!
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thank you good sir, that was really interesting... now we have to wait if it comes back out on the other side, or if the comet is gone forever
is there any knowledge about the history of the comet? it seems extemely unlikely for some random object to get this close to the sun, and if it's a constant orbit how did it survive the last time it passed the sun, and how was it formed initially?
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It almost certainly won't come out. Almost no sungrazer does - the conditions are fierce so close to the Sun.
The comet is a part of a huge family (now more than a thousand, iirc) of Kreutz comets. They have a pretty decenty wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreutz_Sungrazers
edit: to be honest, there was some hope that this will be a HUGE commet (read Ikeya-Seki huge) and will survive and be seen by naked eye in daylight, but it was a very faint hope indeed. It never brightened so much, the core of the comet was just not big enough.
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Amazing footage! According to those timestamps at the bottom, roughly 2 frames are taken per minute which makes the comet appear to be moving much faster than it actually does. I wish that telescope could zoom in even closer!
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Awesome pictures of the sun.
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On December 16 2011 10:02 opisska wrote:It almost certainly won't come out. Almost no sungrazer does - the conditions are fierce so close to the Sun. The comet is a part of a huge family (now more than a thousand, iirc) of Kreutz comets. They have a pretty decenty wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreutz_Sungrazers edit: to be honest, there was some hope that this will be a HUGE commet (read Ikeya-Seki huge) and will survive and be seen by naked eye in daylight, but it was a very faint hope indeed. It never brightened so much, the core of the comet was just not big enough.
It seems that the comet DID come out the other side. It lives on!
http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=NASA_SDO (source)
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Well I really think that Naniwa shoul- Oh wait, a thread that's not about that? I approve ^^
Great pictures :D
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On December 16 2011 08:04 ToT)OjKa( wrote:
That'll teach it
I'm sure the sun learned its lesson.
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I've never seen pictures of the sun like this. I don't know what I'm looking at, and where's the comet in them lol
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EPT
![[image loading]](http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/latest.jpg)
