With about a month of astrometry now in hand, the orbital solutions are converging on a perihelion date close to March 11, 2013, and perihelion distance of close to 0.3 AU.

How bright Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) will be is still very much unknown, and we may not know for more than a year how bright it will eventually be.  The ephemeris from the JPL Horizons website has a predicted peak magnitude of -0.5, and the Minor Planet Center predicts a peak magnitude of 0.6.  When the comet is brightest, it will likely be low in the west after sunset, about 10 degrees above the horizon at 7pm seen from Hawaii.

Planetarium software for PC and Mac

Stellarium (free)

Starry Night (various versions, $25 and upwards)

iPad and iPhone

Star Walk ($2.99)

IridiumFlares ($1.99)

Websites

Heavens Above – good for prediction of satellite passes and iridium flares – make sure that you set your location carefully

© 2011 Richard Wainscoat Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha