Incoming.....

I'll sleep easy tonight knowing that the sky won't fall in on top of me.

I'll sleep easy too. These boards would be lessened without your fascinating and thought provoking insights Peter. Long may you have them.

Right, plugged in all the numbers and I'm afraid it doesn't look too good. What will happen is Rosetta will be Cetus near Ceres the night before closest approach at mag +15.7. One the evening on closest approach there is an opportunity for those with good southerly horizons to catch this between around 18:45 and 20:00. (18:30 as this is when astro twilight ends and 20:00 max because ROSETTA then speeds through cetus and by 9pm its now its gone through Fornax, Phoenix and is in Octans!

Between 18:30 and 20:00 it gets no higher than 6 deg 41'. Looking at all this I won't bother with the map unless someone really wants one.

A pity because this baby really shifts, it would easily be visible moving in real time, around 1' per second at closest approach!

Of course there is the opportunity for imagers to get this the night before when its well placed all night.

a truely perplexing post Peter :lol:

Anyway, it'll all depend on the weather for us

I take it you now read the follow up posts? Turns out that some-one noticed the ephemerids were very similar to the incoming ROSETTA craft!! Yes this is no asteroid its ROSETTA and will be visible at mag +9.7 when at closest approach at 20:15UT on Nov 13 :lol:

Ha! Thats hould give the initial 'discoverer' a good laugh from his peers! :lol: