Comet Ison 'Looking Odd'
... Excerpt
posted on Nov, 2 2013 @ 08:50 AM
It isn't just casual observers or amateur astronomers that are baffled by Comet ISON but highly regarded comet observer John Bortle is perplexed over ISON’s “odd” behavior.
Bortle said that the recent images along with his own visual impression, is "downright weird." He adds that, "There is a bright, miniature, long-tailed comet situated within a much larger, but very much fainter and diffuse halo of a coma."
Bortle has observed several hundred comets and yet, he writes, “At this stage of the game, with the comet about to cross the orbit of Earth, I cannot recall any previous comet in my 50-plus years of comet observing looking quite like this. So, what does ISON’s current look foretell, or mean? I honestly don’t know. All I can say is I don’t like the odd look of it at this time.”
"Those visual people using larger telescope also often remark about the odd way the comet looks, while those using relatively small scopes and big binoculars report seeing a larger, more-or-less faint but uniform cometary mass," he added. "This comet is currently at a distance from the sun where it should no longer exhibit such a dichotomy of appearance.”
Around Oct. 19, ISON seemed to suddenly brighten at a more rapid pace. On Oct. 21, Arizona observer Bruce Gary wrote, "The comet (coma plus tail) continues a dramatic brightening trend that started Oct 19. But just four days later, with the comet showing signs of fading a bit rather than brightening, Gary, sounding almost a bit exasperated commented, "I don't know what's going on with this comet!"
Another expert Carl Hergenrother of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Ariz., reiterates the weirdness of ISON, “Visual and CCD-V observations do show a comet that is brightening at a normal rate, while CCD-R observations show a comet that is barely brightening at all. CCD-R sees predominately dust in contrast with visual and CCD-V, which have large gas components. It seems that over the past month or so ISON’s gas production rate has increased as expected while its dust production rate has not,”
Hergenrother said. “I don’t really know what this means but something has to give, either the dust production picks up or the gas production slows down.”
Analyzing all the observations made since Sept. 4 shows that ISON is responding to the sun more like a solid body would respond, rather than as a typical "fluffy" comet.
Expert after expert notice the anomalies, yet the general public should just trust NASA and the government’s assertions?