Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Free LIVE Broadcast of Comet Garradd On Universe Today – August 22, 2011

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Are you ready for some excitement? How would you like to watch a LIVE broadcast of Comet C2009 P1 Garradd right here on Universe Today?! Thanks to our good friends at Bareket Observatory and clear skies in Israel, we can do just that! Step inside to our virtual observatory…

Before you get upset and think there’s something wrong, there are a few things you must remember about watching a live telescope broadcast. If there are clouds – you will see no image. If the camera isn’t turned on and broadcasting – you will only see the blue “frame” below where the image is meant to be. Because the data load is so huge from the incoming images, it limits itself to refreshing about every 30 to 60 seconds. This means the image will appear static, then reset itself. If you watch for a period of perhaps 10 minutes or so, you will notice appreciable movement against the background stars. The tracking is set on the nucleus of the comet, so the comet won’t appear to move – the background stars will each time it refreshes. There can also be unforeseen glitches, (such as viewer overload) so please be patient! Last… There will be no image until the broadcast time. You don’t have to click anywhere else – when the broadcast is happening it will be right here where you see the frame below.

The live broadcast of Comet Garradd will take place on Monday, August 22 – 2100-0300 local Israel time (UTC+3). To give you some help figuring times, here’s a very brief listing that’s in absolutely no particular order:

  • Shanghai – Tue 2:00 AM – Tue 8:00 AM
  • Sydney – Tue 4:00 AM – Tue 10:00 AM
  • Zurich – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
  • Moscow – Mon 10:00 PM – Tue 4:00 AM
  • Rome – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
  • London – Mon 7:00 PM – Tue 1:00 AM
  • New York – Mon 2:00 PM – Mon 8:00 PM
  • Mexico City – Mon 1:00 PM – Mon 7:00 PM
  • Vancouver – Mon 11:00 AM – Mon 5:00 PM
  • Honolulu – Mon 8:00 AM – Mon 2:00 PM
  • New Delhi – Mon 11:30 PM – Tue 5:30 AM
  • Johannesburg – Mon 8:00 PM – Tue 2:00 AM
  • Tokyo – Tue 3:00 AM – Tue 9:00 AM
  • Denver – Mon 12:00 Noon – Mon 6:00 PM
  • San Francisco – Mon 11:00 AM – Mon 5:00 PM
  • San Juan – Mon 2:00 PM – Mon 8:00 PM
  • Anchorage – Mon 10:00 AM – Mon 4:00 PM

That having been said, the frame right below these words will be your virtual eyepiece!



Feel free to “take” any images you want and stitch together a video – or post ’em to your favorites sites. If you enjoyed the broadcast, won’t you take a few minutes and thank the hardworking, generous crew at Bareket Observatory? I am very sure they would appreciate it!

Other broadcast footage you might enjoy watching again are: Solar eclipse 2011 Solar Eclipse 2011, Lunar Eclipse 2011 Including Hands-on Activities, and NASA Deep Space Webcast.

26 Replies to “Free LIVE Broadcast of Comet Garradd On Universe Today – August 22, 2011”

  1. Haven’t even started the broadcast and I get

    509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

    1. perhaps i didn’t make it clear. the broadcast of comet garradd will happen right here within the center of this page – where the bareket observatory logo is located. you won’t have to go off this page to watch the event. hope this helps you to understand! (and yes, i spelled the name wrong on the image – but stuff happens and i don’t have another image to work from at the moment.)

      1. Yo Tammy, what do mean that you’ve “spelled the name wrong on the image”? It’s at the two links that you’ve misspelled Bareket.

      2. so i did – and so it has been corrected. (that’s what happens when i try to get in a hurry!)

  5. I tried to see it last Saturday. For a small time I did not have a cloud in front of it, but even with a 10″ dobsonian I could barely see it when not looked at it directly.

      2. I’ve heard on BBC’s The Sky At Night programme that broadband or light pollution reduction (LPR) filters work best in light polluted areas by blocking light from both sodium and mercury vapour street lights, while allowing H-alpha, H-beta, and O-III spectral lines through. Because broadband filters have a wider spectral range, they don’t cause a fainter image of sky objects like narrowband (UHC) filters do. However, I’ve not tried it myself – I still need to get myself a decent telescope!

  6. The motion of the comet really is visible over a period of a few minutes! I noticed this motion is even more evident looking at a series of images downloaded over a short period. Looking at five images taken over five minutes in my picture viewer readily shows the stars slipping by the comet centered in the field. I’ll have to try making a short movie from these images.

    Not sure, but a stubby extension (tail?) appears to be faintly visible extending to the upper right of the comet. Anyone know if the tail is oriented in this direction?

    1. when i viewed the comet a few days ago in binoculars, i was picking up a very short, stubby tail – almost making the coma look tear-drop shaped – pointed west-northwest. once in awhile i see it in these images, too!

      1. Thanks for the info, Tammy. I wasn’t really sure if it was there in the first place. Oh, and as morphics mentioned above, it appears the camera was reoriented and the stubby tail now appears to the lower left of the coma.

        And what a nice way this is to spend this sunny afternoon. Thanks UT and Bareket Observatory for these beautiful images.

      2. I wish I would be lucky enough to have such dark skies.
        I tested with a binoculars, and I failed to see anything.

  8. I’ve put up a short video of the frames so far:

    Interestingly the pictures just stopped for ~10 mins, and now that they’ve restarted the telescope seems to be looking at the comet from a different orientation. Must be the aliens 🙂

    I’ll put up a full video when the telescope closes its eyes for the night.

  9. Thanks all for your comments.
    When the comet crossed the Meridian – the telescope flip itself in order to keep tracking its target. This is the reason for the “new orientation” and the 8minute waiting period.
    So far the scope took about 200 images of the comet, more to come.

    Its possible to detect new potential asteroids using the live feed.
    All you need to do is to blink the images and look for new “moving objects”!

    Ido.
    Bareket observatory.

    1. Thanks for the information, and for the amazing feed! The flip makes sense now, just as smaller telescopes need to be flipped to keep track of an object so does yours.

  10. I’ve uploaded a video of all the frames I captured:

    Thanks Bareket, looking forward to the official video!

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