The "Comet Ison" Show is over -- worldwide expectation is quashed

from SPACE WEATHER dot-com -- online information on sightings and space / cosmic events: COMET ISON UPDATE: Later this month, NASA plans to point the Hubble Space Telescope at Comet ISON to see if anything remains after the comet's death plunge through the sun's atmosphere on Nov. 28th. Note to Hubble: Don't expect to see much. Amateur astronomers are already searching the comet's position and setting hard limits on the brightness of any remains. Consider this image taken on Dec. 8th by Eric Allen of the Observatoire du Cégep de Trois-Rivières in Champlain, Québec: [ visit SPACEWEHATER dot-com ] The position of the comet--had it survived--is circled. "I unfortunately have to say that there is nothing down to about magnitude +16.5, not even a small condensation," says Allen. More information about Allen's observing techniques and image processing may be via weblink at www.spaceweather.com ] As Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab comments in his blog on the Comet ISON Observing Campaign web site: "The evidence appears strong that at some point approaching perihelion Comet ISON likely began to completely fall apart. What remains of ISON now is going to be either just a cloud of dust, or perhaps a few very depleted chunks of nucleus. Either way, it's not going to flare up at this point and we should assume the comet's show is over."