[BAA Comets] Low-elongation search project / Kreutz group comet hunting

[RICHARD MILES]

A)  - Yes Nick, both Martin's article in TA and his recent book "Hunting and 
Imaging Comets" are a sort of call to arms for amateur astronomers, UK ones 
especially.

I'll reiterate that today (May 3rd) is the 29th anniversary of the last 
discovery from the UK (viz. Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock discovered by the 
legendary George Alcock - it was his last discovery).

Maybe we could coordinate searching by setting up a map of the sky 
coordinates on the Web on which observers can record areas / dates / mag 
limits searched which could help focus the effort. I am especially thinking 
about those regions of the sky located relatively close to the Sun (say 
solar elongations of 25-55 degrees) most of which are poorly covered.


B) - Another more specialised comet search is to go after returning Kreutz 
group members - the latest spectacular comet, Comet Lovejoy, is such an 
example. Graham Relf and I have been discussing that and he has kindly 
prepared an applet to identify the regions of the sky where returning Kreutz 
comets can be potentially be found along with useful data and finder charts.

If you go to:
http://www.britastro.org/computing/applets_planets.html
and click on "Add object" you'll see a drop-down list, which includes 
"Kreutz search area".

Click on this and you'll see a collection of points plotted corresponding to 
the orbits of three famous Kreutz comets of the past, which taken together 
are indicative of the search area to look. Hover your mouse over one of 
these points and left click the mouse and you'll see a pop-up data list for 
one particular comet at either 150, 300, 600 or 1000 days before perihelion. 
If you then click on "Show chart" you'll see a finder chart (roughly 5deg x 
5deg) on which all 3 comets' positions are plotted.

Thanks to Graham we have a very nice facility to aid us in planning Kreutz 
comet searching.  Now we have this discussion list we can progress plans in 
a much more interactive fashion than was possible before.

Richard Miles


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick James" <ndj at nickdjames.com>
To: "RICHARD MILES" <rmiles.btee at btinternet.com>
Cc: <comets-disc at britastro.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 11:14 PM
Subject: Re: [BAA Comets] Comet search program


> Richard/Roger,
>
> I certainly agree that it would be great to get a 21st century comet 
> discovery from the UK. We've done very well with supernovae but comets are 
> a different matter. Martin Mobberley's article in the 2002 July TA "LINEAR 
> can be beaten: Hope for the Amateur Comet Hunter" is still relevant even 
> after ten years.
>
>> Not sure how many folk are receiving these mailings
> As of 5 mins ago there were 19 people subscribed to the list but it is 
> early days and I hope more will join over the next few weeks.
>
> Nick.
>