[meteorite-list] How I Found My New Comet (C/2006 T1 Levy)

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Oct 5 14:11:18 2006
Message-ID: <004701c6e8a9$a416c2f0$157e4b44_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Everybody,

    Visually finding a comet, these days, is always news.
Wonderful and difficult thing. Today most comets are
found photographically or from satellite images.

    Still, very few of us will ever see a comet that won't
get brighter than 10th or 11th magnitude. But if you want
to actually SEE a comet, there's fine bright one on
display right now!

    If you don't mind getting up at 4:00 am, have a pair
of binoculars or even a small telescope (or have really
dark skies and good eyeballs), and have a clear view
of the NE horizon, you're in luck!

    Comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN) is about to hit a magnitude
peak of nearly 6.0 in a few days. It's very pretty, with a
nice visible tail. It made the turn around the Sun on Sept.
29 and is heading out, probably out of the solar system
forever. (I'm not being hyperbolic; it is.)

    It's been a performer. Many predicted there would
be nothing much left of it after its sun-bathing episode.
Instead, it has brightened beyond expectation.

    It was photographed by satellite (NASA's Solar Wind
ANisotropies, or SWAN) on June 20th and found there
in that imagery on July 13 by The List's own Rob Matson
(OK, and some guy in Australia, too), but "imagery"
discoverers don't get their comets named after them.
Me, I think a discovery is a discovery, but... Maybe
he's over-compensating; Rob found five more comets
in September.

    Here's a nice picture of C/2006 M4:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061004.html
The page has links to star maps and other information.

    See, I said it was pretty.

    It's moving away from the hindmost rear paw of the
Great Bear (or Big Dipper) and is racing away under the
little Hunting Dog (Canes Venatici), getting closer to the
NE horizon all the time, even as it gets brighter.

    Catch it while you can!


Sterling K. Webb
---------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 11:41 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] How I Found My New Comet (C/2006 T1 Levy)


>
> http://skytonight.com/news/4306207.html
>
> How I Found My New Comet
>
> The prolific comet hunter recalls the story of his latest find.
> by David H. Levy
> October 4, 2006
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Editor's Note: In the following account, Sky & Telescope contributing
> editor David Levy tells how he discovered comet C/2006 T1 last Monday
> from his Jarnac Observatory in Vail, Arizona.
> The new Comet Levy was his first visual discovery in 12 years, and it
> brings his total comet finds to 22 (9 visually and 13 photographically).
> C/2006 T1 reaches perihelion on October 9th at a distance of 1.072
> astronomical units from the Sun. It
> is not expected to get brighter than about 10th or 11th magnitude. The
> comet is currently in Leo, moving southeastward to Sextans. To get the
> comet's orbital elements and ephemeris, go to the Central Bureau for
> Astronomical Telegrams
> <http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2006T1.html>.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The morning of October 2, 2006, was party cloudy and warm as I set up
> Miranda, my 16-inch f/5 Newtonian reflector, to begin my comet hunt. As
> other telescopes whirred nearby, taking their automated search exposures
> for comets, I began searching along a strip of sky that soon brought me
> to Saturn. Then I did a double take. About 0.6?? away there was a small,
> fuzzy, 10th-magnitude glow. My first reaction was that it must be a
> ghost image of some kind. But it looked too real for that. To check, I
> looked through my Meade 8-inch "finderscope," which was mounted atop the
> 16-inch just for emergencies like this. The object appeared fainter in
> the 8-inch, but in exactly the same place. A quick check of my star
> atlas revealed no bright NGC objects in that area.
>
> But I've been fooled by reflections before, especially with CCD images.
> As dawn began, I decided on a final check. One of my survey telescopes ??"
> a Meade 14-inch telescope with HyperStar coupled to a Canon digital SLR
> camera ??" had just completed its morning run. I quickly aimed it at the
> suspect's position and took a series of exposures. I went inside the
> house, downloaded the images, and then displayed them on the computer
> screen. The images clearly showed a real, moving object. With my heart
> pounding with excitement, I e-mailed a quick report to Dan Green of the
> Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, notifying him of the
> possible new comet. But I still wasn't 100% sure.
>
> So I called my friend Tom Glinos in Ontario, Canada, whose remotely
> operated 25??-inch RC Optical Systems telescope at Jarnac Observatory
> has been doing yeoman's work in finding
> asteroids over the last two years. "I instinctively knew something
> interesting had happened," Glinos recalls. "We have checked each other's
> 'discoveries' in the past, and this case was no different. David and I
> carefully examined his images, trying to eliminate any possible optical
> illusions or misidentifications. In the end we were left with a comet
> with no visible tail."
>
> Later in the day, a simple message that gave the object's position and
> brightness went up quietly on the Minor Planet Center's NEO (Near-Earth
> Object) Confirmation Page. This way, observers
> around the world could try to confirm the new comet before it rose again
> for me. Richard Miles, president of the British Astronomical Association,
> was among the first observers. "I was
> totally fooled by Saturn, being less than a degree away," he notes. "I
> first thought [the object] might have been confused with one of Saturn's
> satellites. Then I mistook the glow seeping into the side of the [CCD]
> frame as being Saturn itself. In fact, it was the new comet."
>
> The following morning, October 3rd, the comet had moved enough away from
> Saturn to shine beautifully by itself. Later that day Dan Green issued
> IAU Circular 8757, which announced Comet Levy, C/2006 T1, to the rest of
> the world. After a hectic and wondrous 24 hours, helped by fellow
> observers in Hungary, Italy, the UK, and the US, I finally enjoyed my
> first uninterrupted look at this new cosmic interloper.
>
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Received on Thu 05 Oct 2006 02:11:11 PM PDT