The animation below shows the motion of Comet Ikeya-Murakami on Nov. 13, 2010, captured with a New Mexico-based telescope operated remotely by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre. The images were taken near dawn and show the comet's movement over a period of 45 minutes. Each exposure was three minutes in length, and the faint angled streak around 0:10 in the animation is a satellite trail. At the time of these images, the comet was some 229 million miles away from Earth. Read more
Newly discovered fast-changing comet visible in Small telescopes
A newly discovered comet that has caught the attention of skywatchers around the world appears to be undergoing some dynamic changes. The comet, called Ikeya-Murakami (C/2010 V1), was first detected last week by amateur astronomers in Japan, but several other skywatchers have since been watching the icy wanderer's changing appearance over the last few days. Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin, of Moscow, used the remotely operated ISON-NM telescope in New Mexico to observe the new Comet Ikeya-Murakami over the weekend. Read more
The long period comet Ikeya-Murakami (C/2010 V1) was independently discovered by the two Japanese amateur astronomers Kaoru Ikeya and Shigeki Murakami. on the 3rd November, 2010. The orbital elements of the comet indicate a perihelion passage on the 18th October, 2010, at a distance of 1.7 AU from the Sun.