Comet Lulin passes from the constellation of Virgo to Leo these few weeks (mid Feb to mid March).
For viewers in Colombo and perhaps other parts of Sri Lanka, the comet rises from the East and sets in the West (see charts below). This is based on Stellarium - an open source sky map program.
On tuesday, 24 Feb 2009, Lulin will be closest to Earth. See note from SpeaceWeather.com below.
ලුලින් වල්ගා තරුව නැගෙනහිරෙන් ප.ව. 8 ට පමන නැග බටහිරෙන් උදෑසන 5.30 පමන බැසයයි.
SpaceWeather.com Says:
What are the odds? On Tuesday, Feb. 24th, Saturn and Comet Lulin will converge in the constellation Leo only 2 degrees apart. At the same time, Comet Lulin will be making its closest approach to Earth--the comet at its best!-- while four of Saturn's moons transit the disk of the ringed planet in view of backyard telescopes. Oh, and the Moon will be New, providing dark skies for anyone who wishes to see the show.
The best time to look is around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning (your local time) when the planet-comet combo ascend high in the southern sky. To the unaided eye, Comet Lulin looks like a faint patch of gas floating next to golden Saturn. Point your backyard telescope at that patch and you will see a lovely green comet with a double tail.
Visit http://spaceweather.com for full coverage including photos, sky maps, and a live webcast.
Geographic Notes: Comet Lulin is visible from all parts of the globe--all longitudes and both hemispheres. Directions are reversed in the southern hemisphere; there the comet is located in the northern sky around 1 am. Saturn is globally visible, too, but the special quadruple transit of Saturn's moons starting around 3 a.m. PST on Feb. 24th is visible only to observers around the Pacific Rim. Details may be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/19feb_quadrupletransit.htm
Find Comet Lulin in Stellarium
- Download Steallarium.
- Add the following to the config file. Default paths of the config file are given below:
- Linux: /usr/share/stellarium/data/ssystem.ini
- Mac OS X: /Applications/stellarium.app/data/ssystem.ini
- Windows: C:Program Files\Stellarium\data\ssystem.ini
[lulin]
name = Lulin
parent = Sun
radius = 100
oblateness = 0.0
albedo = 1
lighting = false
orbit_visualization_period = 1000000000
halo = true
color = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo = star16x16.png
tex_map = nomap.png
coord_func = comet_orbit
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2454842.112213313327
orbit_PericenterDistance = 1.211815031505141
orbit_Eccentricity = 1.000243857235593
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 136.8421983153854
orbit_AscendingNode = 338.5047481504214
orbit_Inclination = 178.3725975895116