Entry 189, on 2005-07-04 at 16:19:01 (Rating 1, Science)
Tonight at 5.52 pm New Zealand time, an interesting astronomical event will occur. A probe from the Deep Impact spacecraft will collide with comet Tempel-1 (deliberately, as part of an experiment). This will cause a significant explosion on the surface of the comet and throw a lot of material out into space, temporarily increasing its brightness.
This should be easily visible from Earth, maybe even to the naked eye (a term used by astronomers to mean visible without a telescope, binoculars, etc).
So being an amateur astronomer for many years I plan to watch this event, of course. But the sky is looking quite cloudy at the moment, a common problem when it comes to interesting astronomical phenomena - although I must admit it was clear for the recent occultation of Jupiter.
The most frustrating thing about being an amateur astronomer when observing from a relatively cloudy region like southern New Zealand is that we can prepare for weeks for an important event and have it spoiled at the last minute by an annoying patch of cloud - maybe that's why I have switched to computing as my main time waster now instead!
If I manage to observe this event I will report it here, in my blog, but looking at the weather now, I won't be expecting to make an entry on the subject.
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