Updates: December 2013 (1)

December 6th 2013: A milestone reached…

Took a bit of a break from the blog for the past few days, needed to attend to some real life stuff – writing, editing, sleeping, you know the kind of thing – but back now with some rather amazing news… Just look at this…

Look over there to the “All time” figures…

1,009,495 views… over a million views of this blog… that’s something, isn’t it? I’m quite proud of that. 🙂 And if you’re one of that million plus readership, thank you, I truly appreciate you coming here. (Unless, of course, you’re one of our regular house band of trolls who insist on smearing their ISON Armageddon/ Nibiru-Apocalypse / Electric Universe / Debris Hitting Us NOW! BS on the walls. I don’t appreciate you, but hey, you took us past that million milestone mark so thank you! Looks like the last laugh is on you, eh? Haha! 🙂  )

I set up this blog a year ago with one simple aim: to give people who wanted to know the basic un-embroidered facts about ISON – what it is, where to look for it, and how to see and photograph it – somewhere to go for reliable trustworthy, practical and jargon-free information. Basically I put myself in the shoes of someone with no previous knowledge of astronomy, who had heard about ISON, and wanted to know how to see and enjoy it. That’s why I kept the blog simple, and only used very basic charts and maps. I remember being an absolute beginner in this hobby and being terrified by the books and magazines I found in the library: they were so full of acronyms, abbreviations and gobbledygook, and charts and diagrams which looked more like Elvish writing from Middle Earth than astronomical illustrations that they put me off. So I have tried to write a blog for people who just wanted to see and enjoy ISON, whatever it did, without having to wade through tons of complicated science and theory. And from the lovely comments people have left here I think I managed that!

Of course, some comments haven’t been quite so nice, and some have been outright abusive and offensive. If you’re thinking “Oh they’re not THAT bad!” that’s probably because I’ve sent the very worst ones to the Trash before anyone else got a chance to read and be shocked, offended or disgusted by them. Trust me, some were sickening. But that goes with the territory, I know; as soon as you post a blog online it’s there for anyone to read (that’s the idea! Duh!) which also means anyone can comment. Which is usually fine, free speech and all that, but sometimes people have taken it too far and then I have had to cut them off.

And on the subject of Free Speech, I have to say that I find it absolutely **hilarious** that one of the most prolific web forums for “alternative subjects” – i.e. UFOs, conspiracy theories, Nibiru, End of The World stuff – whose members have regularly linked to this blog, and reproduced its content without my permission – has actually  BANNED me from accessing their site! Yes, you read that correctly. A forum I have never been a member of, and would never dream of being a member of, and which links to/quotes from/uses material from my blog, has banned me from looking at it. I have emailed the admins three times now, politely asking for either access to the forum – to see just which stuff of mine is being used – or for at least an explanation for my ban, but, predictably, nothing has come back. No, I’m not going to name the forum – they know who they are, and I’m not going to give them more exposure! – but so much for supporting “Free Speech” and being against censorship eh, you hypocrites…:-)

I had hoped that this blog would help people, but I had no idea so many people would find it so useful and interesting that it would break through that 1m views barrier. That’s fantastic! So, thanks everyone for reading this and for your support. I really do appreciate it. And I’m delighted that now Comet ISON has gone, many readers – old and new – are now using this blog to help them find and enjoy Comet Lovejoy in the sky. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look, it’s looking really pretty, as this pic of mine, taken Wednesday morning, shows…

I hope you’ll keep reading!

Stu

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December 1st 2013: Farewell, ISON…

She’s gone. That’s it. Comet ISON is gone. What remains is just a cloud of dust particles, blindly following the comet’s original path, slowly, slowly spreading apart. The last images of it taken by the SOHO observatory’s C3 camera showed the dust cloud had already spread so thin that you could see stars through it. This morning the comet has left that camera’s field of view..

…but most experts are agreed that whatever is left is now too diffuse to appear as anything more than a dim misty smudge in telescopes in a few days, if they can even see that.

Essentially, Comet ISON was already a burned meringue as it approached the Sun. Then the Sun reached out, grabbed that meringue in its fiery fist, crushed it to powder and then contemptuously flung the powdered remains out into space, laughing…

What a shame, what a crying shame. We northerners have been cruelly cheated of our best chance in years to enjoy looking at a Great Comet shining in our sky. The photos I was going to take… now never to be taken. Damnit.

Astronomy does this to us sometimes. It promises something spectacular, something wonderful – a sky-filling aurora, a meteor storm, a bright comet – and then yanks the carpet out from under us, and walks away, laughing, as we lie there on the ground, humiliated and feeling so, so stupid for believing it in the first place…

I’ve had that happen to me so many times now, I’ve lost count.

But it goes with the territory. Sometimes we’re let down. Sometimes we’re slapped across the face by the universe for our naivete and enthusiasm, and are just left to stand there, holding a hand to our smarting faces, trying not to burst into tears. Oh, but sometimes… sometimes it goes right, and we see something… magical, something spectacular, something that fills us with wonder and leaves us shaking our heads in disbelief at the sheer beauty of the universe.

ISON was, it seems, never destined to do that. But one day a comet will be discovered which WILL unfurl a beautiful tail across the sky, and leave us all breathless with its beauty. That day might come soon – it could be found later today, it could even have been photographed by one of the remote surveys half an hour ago but has yet to be spotted by someone – or it might not come for years. But it will come, and when it does we’ll be ready for it, and we’ll all gather here again to enjoy it together. I hope.

In the meantime, I’ll keep reporting on ISON as it drifts apart and away, just to complete the story. That’s only fair. But, eventually, this blog will go into hibernation, to be woken – like Ripley  – when another noteworthy comet appears or is discovered. I’ve appreciated all the feedback from people who have come here hoping to find good, solid, easy to understand info about Comet ISON. People have left some lovely comments! Others have left not so nice comments, but pay them no notice. Now ISON has gone those nutters and fools will conveniently forget their rants and raves about it – they will forget they predicted ISON would hit the Sun and trigger solar flares, or hit Earth and kill us all, or was actually the fabled “Nibiru”, or was an alien biosphere called Xanterexx carrying thousands of extraterrestrials to make first contact with us – and move on to something else to talk and Tweet absolute bollocks about, and make lie-filled YouTube videos about. If they want to waste their lives on such utter stupidity, that’s their choice, but I chose, right at the start, to not let them corrupt this blog and I think I succeeded pretty well in that.

This blog isn’t going anywhere yet, and when it eventually does, if you want  to, feel free to read my other blogs. Details here…

In the meantime, Comet Lovejoy is putting on a great show in the sky! So if you saw ISON and are disappointed you won’t see it again, or if you never managed to see ISON and really, really want to see a comet, you can, on the next clear night, and easily too. Lovejoy is brighter than ISON was, and is shining in a dark sky too, not in the sunrise glow. Finding it is easy – just go to my dedicated Comet Lovejoy page (link at the top there) and you’ll find all you need. I saw and photographed it last night and it was just beautiful. So, get yourselves along to that page and start planning your Comet Lovejoy hunt!