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Achernar
Postmaster
Reged: 02/25/06
Posts: 5209
Loc: Mobile, Alabama, USA
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Re: C/2007 N3 (Lulin)
01/10/09 01:50 PM
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That's news to me, a comet with a genuinely hyperbolic orbit? So does that make it really a visitor from our Oort cloud or a comet that was wandering through interstellar space independently before encountering us? Yes, it was an intelligent guess on my part, because other comets that were at first though to be in a hyperbolic or parabolic orbit turned out to be in fact bound to the Sun after follow up observations were made. Doubtlessly, even if it is bound to the Sun after all, it won't be coming back for tens of thousands of years, if not much longer. If it were a short period comet that stayed inside the orbit(s) of the giant planets, it would definitely be a real threat to us.
Taras
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15-inch F/4.5 Dob under construction
10-inch F/4.5 Discovery Dob
6-inch F/8 Homebuilt Dob
4 1/4-inch F/4 Homebuilt reflector
A whole bunch of eyepieces, filters and other accessories....
One curious cat
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