Another potential interstellar object discovered

Planet X I presume?

Thanks for the notification on this interesting find Dr. Astro

Are there any characteristics similar to Oumuamua's? (besides possibly being interstellar)

fascinating stuff OP

Way too early to say yet, though the images I've seen so far of this one look more like a traditional comet in terms of having a coma and slight tail. Unless I'm just seeing things. These are images of it taken by Gennady Borisov, the amateur astronomer who discovered it:
[link to cdn.iflscience.com (secure)]

I bet there is more to come.

Reaaallllyy interesting twitter thread here, echoing many of those thoughts:
[link to twitter.com (secure)]
The size and brightness would seem to be extremely rare for an interstellar object, making that conclusion seem unlikely. Forcing an orbital solution with a parabolic orbit requires non-gravitational acceleration that is much larger than what has been seen in the past with comets. He even jokes that maybe it has a rocket engine on it. So the possibilities are bad data (unlikely, not impossible), interstellar object, or a propelled alien spaceship resembling a comet (ok not really, but it was jokingly suggested).

The first was just a probe, now they're coming to finish us off.

Our new overlords have a telepathy helmet. This helmet emits so much power that it displaces your own thought patterns with its commands.
When Overlord Gorakk arrives in orbit he only need to don this helmet and give the first command. Every brain bigger than a fruit fly's will instantly receive the transmission and be helpless to resist.

Enjoy the new paradigm, some of you shall work in Gorrak's gold mines with great enthusiasm.
Some of you will be brought to the pens as food.
Either way, resistance is futile!

Can we still see Oumu? It's not coming back is it?

No and no. It's hyperbolic, by definition it's not coming back.

Interesting. They video was informative.
Bump for follow up

is it possible to discover asteorid,if it's coming from direction of sun? and if yes,how early astrotards will know it?

Gets me thinking. Are the stars below or above the firmamanet. Or perhaps part of. Time to keep dwelling.

Interstellar2 to Interstellar1: I thought you said the planet was full of crazy useless monkey things, they just fired a nuke at us!

No, we can't currently see asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.

People are dumb and only care about the cult that they are in.

What the hell does this have to do with Trump?

Is there any likely threat that's know from this object? Or rather what scenarios exist?

Last Edited by The Real Mr Anderson Fella on 09/11/2019 04:04 PM

They're coming to pick me up

Astro....very serious question. I’m moving to southwestern South Dakota I the middle of nowhere. The sky is like nothing I’ve ever seen with no artificial light screwing with anything. I’m a novice and will never have the knowledge you do...but I want to get a scope and tie it into my Mac to search the skies. I want to see as far and clearly as I can. I already have a high end Mac...with your experience can I get a decent looking glass for under 20k? This is a serious question and I’d like to use my Mac to control it and move it around to see into the skies automatically with my coordinates I ask it to review. Is this possible with my budget or a waste of time? Thanks man

Yea, that's what gets me. To outgas, a comet must be close to the sun. HOW close, Dr. Astro? I mean, outside of, say, the orbit of Mars, would there be enough heat from the sun to cause cometary outgassing?

Seems to me, far enough out, bodies showing path or attitude changes from jets of gases would be more likely be some sort of spacecraft using direction/attitude thrusters, wouldn't they? Spacecraft under engine power would most likely be burning and accelerating in a straight line.

In system, an interstellar spacecraft wouldn't need to be using any FTL to get around. Using a 1 G burn (engine only using enough propulsion to generate acceleration at 1 G), it would only take a little more than 4 days to get to Jupiter. 5 days if you started decelerating halfway there (doing a "turn and burn" as in The Expanse).

So is this object going to come close to Elon Musk's car astronaut???

Would be something if the car astronaut could crash onto the object and deflect it's course closer to Earth...

No threat, it will miss earth and even earth's orbit cleanly, but it might get bright enough to observe with smaller scopes later in the year, but mainly a southern hemisphere show.

Ok nice thank you for the reply 5*

Is it a karat or the stick?

If your expectation is high end then 20k isn't actually going to get you as far as you might hope. Just to give you some idea, this is what I would call a high end scope... and it's just the scope, no mount, no camera:
[link to optcorp.com (secure)]
The financing option on it is a higher monthly payment than my house payment. If you want to stay around 20k your best bet is to probably stick with something similar to my setup, but I have no experience trying to operate my equipment on a mac. As it is I have issues with compatibility with the latest versions of windows since my hardware is already well over a decade old.

Most other amateur astronomers will tell you that the mount is the most important part, and it can be very important, but I try to circumvent that by using an adaptive optics unit. With all that in mind, if I had 20k to spend on telescope equipment and I wanted a more "modern" version of what I have now, this is what I would spec out:
[link to www.adorama.com (secure)]
[link to www.adorama.com (secure)]
This one's currently on sale, so go big or go home I guess:
[link to www.adorama.com (secure)]
You'll also need to counterbalance the heavy camera:
[link to www.adorama.com (secure)]
And last but not least you want a high quality equatorial wedge to mount the scope for polar alignment:
[link to www.adorama.com (secure)]
How well SBIG's software will work with Mac is a complete unknown to me, but the above camera and AO system is far more modern than my old SBIG ST-2000XCM and AO-7 system and it does list compatibility with Mac. I just can't personally vouch for that aspect. Likewise you'll want to control your LX200 from the computer as well, and this is easily doable. I've seen it done with Macs using TheSky software.
[link to optcorp.com (secure)]
YMMV, but there should be multiple programs out there that can do the job on Mac.

Keep in mind the above list is designed to replicate what I have, it goes very much against conventional wisdom of what constitutes a great astrophotography rig. Most will tell you to get a high quality German equatorial mount and not go with a Schmidt-Cassegrain. It depends partly on what you're planning to do with it and how. I do a lot of high magnification satellite tracking, so I need the adaptability of switching to an altitude/azimuth configuration and the high focal length of the Schmidt-Cassegrain. I also like to image very small distant galaxies and obscure nebulae like the one I did the webcast on last night. Those targets would not be well suited for a shorter focal length scope on a German equatorial mount. YMMV. If you want eye candy photos of large nebulae, a shorter focal length apochromat on a GEM will get the job done. My view is, I can always toss an apochromat refractor piggyback on top of my Schmidt-Cassegrain to go for beauty shots, but I can't toss my Schmidt-Cassegrain on a GEM that was originally spec'ed out to only handle a lighter smaller Apo refractor.

Last Edited by Astromut on 09/11/2019 05:29 PM

Wake me up when e =
:nibiru1:
or


jk. Good thread. I'm jealous of your mad amateur astro skillz and maths. Will be following. 5 stars.

Ohwowow! Another Oumuamua!