The latest MAPS photo, exactly 24 hours from April 2nd: brighter and closer to the sun than yesterday.
And for your convenience, here's both days in one graphic:
Tomorrow will be the "do or die" day for Comet MAPS; at around 0800 UTC on the 4th, or about 4:00 AM EDT Saturday morning, the comet will go behind that large dark blue circle for its closest approach to the sun. According to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) Circular#5675, Comet MAPS will pass within 101,100 miles above the sun's surface (the photosphere) at 10:24 AM EDT (1424 GMT).
If it survives that closest approach, we don't get to know until it comes out from behind that dark circle and I'll SWAG 1900UTC Saturday, or around 3PM EDT.
I'm not sure how I'm going to try to watch this. I have a solar filter for a telescope but more study is required and life has been throwing lots of interruptions at us.
FYI, there are movies on the soho website that show the comet very well.
ReplyDeletehttps://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.mp4
Yeah, I've been watching that, too, leaving a tab set on the latest:
Deletehttps://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/
Currently behind the blue disk. Either the next update or the one after should show the big story (3 or 4PM). The last couple of snaps before it went behind the blue disk it looks to get dimmer on that video you linked to. That could MAPS was ripped apart by the sun.