In the -- still growing -- consolidated timeline of planned observations, DIF and MRO are the only contributors from the professional side in August. But, come September, the ISON campaign will take off -- literally! -- as even a balloon and a rocket launches are in preparation and numerous astronomical satellites will be called to duty in addition to ground-based telescopes (of the nightly, radio and even of the solar kind) and amateur astronomers invited to contribute to specific projects. It is a matter of debate if this is the greatest astronomical campaign devoted to a single object of all time: the spread of observing eyes from Mercury to Mars certainly is. But what's missing is the fleet of spacecraft actually going to visit the comet itself that defined the also very huge campaign awaiting Halley's comet in 1986. The return of Halley's comet had been predicted for centuries, though, while ISON was only discovered in September 2012.

This comet has moved into the crosshairs of science not so much because of its potential -- but not in any way guaranteed -- coming great brightness and impressive tail that may be visible for a few days in December. It is the never-before-observed combination of a fresh comet from the Oort cloud -- way beyond even the planets and the Kuiper belt -- that will come to within 1.2 million kilometers of the solar surface! And was discovered 14 months before that encounter with destiny, also unheard of for such a "sun-skirter". ISON's behavior in the past year has been puzzling, with a stupendously flat lightcurve in the first half of 2013; interpretations at the workshop varied widely and ranged from a mostly dry dustball, soon to crumble, to an ice-rich body that already underwent a prolonged outburst just fading back to normal. Survival of the tiny nucleus -- less than 4 kilometers in diameter, according to the best Hubble images -- closest to the Sun is not guaranteed either. Not only the solar heat but even tidal forces will be uneasily close to destructive. For that reason, plans for another emergency workshop or video conference in December were already mulled at the August meeting so that the ISON campaign could react promptly to the comet's fate.