Ison Location update 04/10/2013

These are the current co-ordinates for Ison at 19:00 GMT  04/10/2013

Co-ordinates: 09h  42m  53.8s    16* 48' 19.6"
Distance from Sun: 236,170,890 km
Distance from Earth: 304,987,829 km
Magnitude: 10.83

For those who don't know you can track Ison in real time from the comfort of your computer by visiting the fantastic The Sky live website

With thanks to The Sky Live

Ison update Location on 26/09/2013

These are the current co-ordinates for Ison at 20.03 GMT  26/09/2013

Co-ordinates: 09h 26m 00.5s,   18* 26'  08.2"
Distance from Sun: 258,611,145 km
Distance from Earth: 339,902,455 km
Magnitude: 11.38

For those who don't know you can track Ison in real time from the comfort of your computer by visiting the fantastic The Sky live website

With thanks to The Sky Live

Mars Express to start imaging Ison today

The European Space Agency will give it’s Mars Express Orbiter craft a new mission tonight, to start photographing Ison. Mars Express will get some of the best views in the solar system as Ison will pass Mars at just 10.5 million kilometres, three times closer than it will get to Earth. 

Mars Express is hoped to produce the some of the best data on the composition of Ison’s corona that we will get, so we are egarly awaiting the results. Mars Express is well equipped and with such an impressive aray of instruments at the ESA disposal, we are expecting some great insights in to Isons life.

The Mars Express Orbiter will start observing Ison today 24/09/2013

 Surface/subsurface instruments
· HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera)
· OMEGA (Visible and Infrared Mineralogical Mapping Spectrometer)
· MARSIS (Sub-surface Sounding Radar Altimeter)
 Atmosphere/Ionosphere instruments
· PFS (Planetary Fourier Spectrometer)
· SPICAM (Ultraviolet and Infrared Atmospheric Spectrometer)
· ASPERA (Energetic Neutral Atoms Analyser)
  

 This is just the start of a four pronged mission from the European Space Agency to study Ison. In November the ESA/NASA SOHO mission will turn its sights on Ison, then it’s the turn of the Venus Express orbiter and the Proba-2 satellite. We will bring you more information on these missions closer the time!