Comet breakup..

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=63973
http://www.cometography.com/pcomets/073p.html
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200604121008.htm
http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0073P/2006.html

Shoemaker -Levy and Jupiter cannot help but enter my mind....

but stopped at "crop circle".

:crazy:

About the UFO freaks and thier hypothosis..

,this comet is real..and it will be passing by. How close? who knows.
Might be a golden picture taking opportunity or a disaster.

I have a small telescope on the porch. Though light polution is a problem here, I'll get a good view if it's high enough on the horizon.
The charts in that one link will be helpful.

I sure don't like that 1st guy's assesment though....I sure hope he's a crackpot.
Hahahaha

I googled news for Schwassmann-Wachmann and got lots of hits
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Schwassmann-Wachmann&btnG=Search+News

Here's a particularly interesting one:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060418/nytu067.html?.v=47

Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann to Be Broadcast Live Over the Internet From Mountain Top Telescopes
Tuesday April 18, 6:00 am ET
Public Viewing of Closest Comet to Earth in 20 Years at Slooh.com from 9pm EST

CANARY ISLANDS, Spain, April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Comet 73P Schwassmann- Wachmann, which has broken up into 19 separate pieces and is heading for a rendezvous with Earth, will be broadcast live from Slooh.com's Canary Island based telescopes every night this week starting at 9pm EST. The first of its kind, Slooh.com broadcasts live celestial events to the viewing public from its powerful telescopes stationed at high altitude at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, the leading European observatory.

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Slooh.com's coverage will be hosted by astronomy luminaries David Levy, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy, Bob Berman, columnist with Astronomy Magazine, Michael Narlock, Head of Astronomy at the Cranbrook Institute of Science, and Jeffrey Bass, Head of Astronomy at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

"We have assembled the equipment and the commentators for just such a spectacle," said Michael Paolucci, president of Slooh.com. "It will amaze people to see it live while the experts explain exactly what they are seeing."

First discovered 76 years ago, Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann was seen to split into 3 pieces in 1995 and as a result grew 1000 times brighter. The brightest fragment "C" will zoom past Earth at a distance of 0.0735 AU (11 million kilometers) keeping us safe from collisions. The other two main pieces may be a little closer at 0.0515 AU and 0.0505 AU. Although rare, comet splits have been reported in the past. Among them, the classic case is the comet Shoemaker Levy which split into 21 pieces, all of which crashed on to Jupiter in 1994.

About Slooh

Launched in 2003 and with members in 60 countries, Slooh is the only live online telescope available to the public. Slooh.com's patent pending technology collects the light of distant celestial objects and streams it over the internet in real time. Slooh.com's telescopes are configured to optimize the view of thousands of astronomical objects such as the Orion Nebula, the Whirlpool Galaxy and the Pleiades Cluster -- objects that are nearly impossible to see with a typical backyard telescope. Slooh.com's telescopes are stationed five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, which enables members in North America to see the night sky during daylight hours in the U.S., starting at 2pm EST. Based in New York, NY, Slooh.com's partners include Discovery.com, Astronomy Magazine, & VSNL, one of the largest broadband companies in India.

I can sit on my butt at the computer and watch it.

Though there's something awe inspiring knowing I'm looking into the cosmos at an object and contemplating the vastness of scale, I'll still keep up with that site.

Thanx again.

Oh well.

"In 1930 when it passed the Earth this close, there were meteor showers with as many as 100 meteors per minute. However, recent analysis by P. A. Wiegert et al.<1> suggests that a recurrence of this spectacle is unlikely."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwassmann-Wachmann-3