[meteorite-list] Alan Hale: Countdown to 500 Comets

From: Gary Fujihara <fujmon_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:48:30 -1000
Message-ID: <28383459-86B3-49BC-9958-B271B9C8B7FE_at_mac.com>

Aloha,

Since we had a thread recently on Alan Hale (as well as a diversion on
his son of television sitcom fame), I thought I would forward an
announcement sent by Hale regarding Comet 222P/LINEAR P/2009 MB9.

Those interested in receiving more announcements like this can join
and subscribe to AstronomyOutreach at yahoogroups.com.

> Comet 222P/LINEAR P/2009 MB9
>
> Yet another one of the intrinsically faint periodic comets that have
> been
> discovered during recent years. It was initially discovered by
> LINEAR in
> late 2004 -- and I even made an unsuccessful visual attempt for it
> then --
> and this time around it was "re-discovered" as an Apollo-type
> asteroid and
> not recognized as the expected LINEAR comet until it began to exhibit
> cometary activity just before entering evening twilight in early
> August. It
> passed 0.17 AU from Earth on August 5 and went through inferior
> conjunction
> a week later.
>
> The comet began emerging into the morning sky shortly before the end
> of
> August and I started to make attempts for it, but in addition to the
> normal
> monsoon activity I've also had to contend with hazy skies (perhaps
> caused by
> smoke from the Station Fire that is burning near some of my old
> haunts just
> north of Los Angeles) and the frustrating fact that, during what clear
> mornings I did have, the comet always seemed to be located directly
> on top
> of background stars. I managed to see it on September 1 but it was
> passing
> over a pair of faint background stars and I couldn't tell too much
> about it;
> finally, on September 2 -- the last morning with any darkness before
> full
> moon -- I was able to view it in a "clean" star field as a faint
> diffuse
> object. On September 2.47, m1=12.9 (extinction corrected), 0.9' coma.
>
> Moonlight will wipe out the comet for the next week and a half, and
> by the
> time it is again accessible in a dark sky it will probably be too
> faint for
> visual observations. Since a half-century will elapse before the
> comet even
> passes with 0.5 AU of Earth again, these two observations are likely
> to be
> the only ones I ever obtain of it.
>
> Description at http://www.earthriseinstitute.org/coms46.html#461
>
> Images and reports (including reports of outreach efforts) are
> welcome.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Alan


Gary Fujihara
AstroDay Institute
105 Puhili Place, Hilo, HI 96720
(808) 640-9161, fujmon at mac.com
http://astroday.net
Received on Thu 03 Sep 2009 02:48:30 PM PDT