Two new Comets!

It has been many months since we had comet news this exciting!

Two new comets have been discovered recently, both my amateurs. These
comets are currently bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes,
provided we get the moon out of the way. Orbits for both have just now
been published and are still preliminary.

2004/Q2 (Machholz) is a 10th magnitude comet in Eridanus with a 3' coma
that should be visible in a 6-inch telescope from all but far-northern
latitudes. Unfortunately moonlight will interfere until Sep 9th or so.
Comet Machholz, discovered visually in a 10-inch reflector on August
27, is the 10th comet discovered by Don Machholz of California.
According to the preliminary orbit this comet will brighten dramatically
and may be visible to the naked eye after Christmas!

2004 Q1 (Tucker) is a 12th magnitude object in Cetus with a 25" coma
that should be visible in an 8-inch telescope. Moonlight will interfere
until the 5th or so. Comet Tucker was discovered on CCD images by Roy
A. Tucker of Tucson Arizona on August 23. This comet should brighten
until around November 1, when it should be brighter than 11 magnitude
and be in Andromeda. Throughout this time it will be well placed for
evening observation from both the northern and southern hemispheres.

More information will be posted to the comet chasing web site on
Wednesday, September 1:

http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

Clear skies and good comet chasing!
Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:40:32 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
wrote:

It has been many months since we had comet news this exciting!

Two new comets have been discovered recently, both my amateurs. These
comets are currently bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes,

Clear skies and good comet chasing!
Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

Thanks Greg - any idea where one can get a daily ephemeris [for say
2200UT to suit me in UK!] for these two comets? My websearch only
gave 5 day ? intervals which make finding them hopeless ;-(

Maurice Gavin wrote:
Thanks Greg - any idea where one can get a daily ephemeris [for say
2200UT to suit me in UK!] for these two comets? My websearch only
gave 5 day ? intervals which make finding them hopeless ;-(

Just about any astronomy software program (even free ones) will produce
an ephemeris -- that's the easy part. It's simply a matter of getting
the latest orbital elements into the program. But as an avid comet
observer I've found that one usually needs more than just the position
of the comet to find it successfully; unless one has a great deal of
experience observing comets it is essential to have realistic magnitude
and coma diameter parameters that reflect recent observations. With
this information you not only know where to look but what to look for.

Have a look here to see what software written with comet observing in
mind can do for you (shameless plug):

http://www.skyhound.com/comets.html

With the right software you can expect to be finding comets on just
about any night, rather than only when the big bright ones come along.
A lot of people don't seem to realize that. I have fun at star parties
turning people's scopes to comets they didn't even know were there!

Note that I'll be updating my comet chasing page on Wednesday; it will
have latitude-specifc information and finder charts for all the comets
observable visually this month. That's he

http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

Clear skies,
Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html

To reply have a physician remove your spleen

In sci.astro.amateur Maurice Gavin wrote:
: On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:40:32 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
: wrote:

:It has been many months since we had comet news this exciting!
:
:Two new comets have been discovered recently, both my amateurs. These
:comets are currently bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes,
:
:Clear skies and good comet chasing!
:Greg
:
:--
:Greg Crinklaw
:Astronomical Software Developer
:Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

: Thanks Greg - any idea where one can get a daily ephemeris [for say
: 2200UT to suit me in UK!] for these two comets? My websearch only
: gave 5 day ? intervals which make finding them hopeless ;-(

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gareth V. Williams, MS 18, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Associate Director, IAU Minor Planet Center
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html
OpenVMS & RISC OS: refined choices in operating systems

In message , Maurice Gavin
writes
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:40:32 -0600, Greg Crinklaw
wrote:

It has been many months since we had comet news this exciting!

Two new comets have been discovered recently, both my amateurs. These
comets are currently bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes,

Clear skies and good comet chasing!
Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

Thanks Greg - any idea where one can get a daily ephemeris [for say
2200UT to suit me in UK!] for these two comets? My websearch only
gave 5 day ? intervals which make finding them hopeless ;-(

Try he-
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephem...ets/index.html.
As well as ephemerides, it gives suitable text versions of the elements
for several common astronomy software packages. Just copy and paste into
something like
Starry Night and you can follow the track day by day.
--
Cheers,
John.