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 astronomyoutre...@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, fuj...@mac.com
http://astroday.net
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