Overview:

On the 4th of July 2005 the NASA Deep Impact space craft with fire a 370kg probe at the comet Tempel 1. The impact velocity will be 10.2 km/s or 36,720 km/h (22,950 mph).

The impact is expected to make a crater anywhere from the size of a house to the size of a Cricket stadium and up to 30m deep. The impact will send dust and ice into space; visible from earth, and reveal the inner layers of the comet.

The experiment is hopefully going to reveal clues to the formation of the Solar System. Official NASA Fact Sheet(PDF).

Our Role:

After our success in broadcasting to the Internet the Transit of Venus in 2004, we have been approached by NASA to make available the CSU Remote Telescope to schools. We have decided to web-cast the impact from or location in the southern hemisphere as well as make available images for processing by schools. The still images will be able to be downloaded from this site. We will be able to see the comet approximately 2 hours after the impact. The impact is timed for 4pm AEST and sunset is 5.06pm on July 4th.

Webcast:

Like the Transit of Venus, this webcast will be via a CCD camera through the telescope. Only this time we have a much more sensitive camera via our large 12inch telescope. At first we will be streaming 1 image every minutes. On the 4th, we will increase the stream to live video for the impact if needed. Not much is expected to be visible till a few hours after impact.

Still Images:

Each night we will add still images taken the Starlight Xpress camera to the archive. These can be image processed using the StarMX5 software.

Times/Dates:

Starting approximately one month before the impact on 4th July, 2005 at 4pm AEST, we will web-cast for approximately one hour per night, on each clear night, live images of the comet 9P/Tempel 1 to the Internet.

One week from impact on Monday 4th July, 2005 we will web-cast images from the end of nautical twilight (when the Sun is 12 degrees below the horizon approximately 1 hour after sunset) until the comet becomes too low to observe in the western sky around midnight. These web-casts will be treated in the same way as above.

On the day of impact (4pm AEST) we will broadcast from just after sunset when the sky gets dark enough to see the comet with the telescope until it sets in the west. If the impactor hits the comet, it is expected that the comet will brighten considerably because of the ejected material and its sublimation to gas for illumination by the Sun. There may be some delay after the impact before the brightening actually happens.