13.4 The origin and fate of comets and related objects  (Page 4/25)

Comet hunting as a hobby

When amateur astronomer David Levy ( [link] ), the co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 , found his first comet, he had already spent 928 fruitless hours searching through the dark night sky. But the discovery of the first comet only whetted his appetite. Since then, he has found 8 others on his own and 13 more working with others. Despite this impressive record, he ranks only third in the record books for number of comet discoveries. But David hopes to break the record someday.

All around the world, dedicated amateur observers spend countless nights scanning the sky for new comets. Astronomy is one of the very few fields of science where amateurs can still make a meaningful contribution, and the discovery of a comet is one of the most exciting ways they can establish their place in astronomical history. Don Machholz, a California amateur (and comet hunter) who has been making a study of comet discoveries, reported that between 1975 and 1995, 38% of all comets discovered were found by amateurs. Those 20 years yielded 67 comets for amateurs, or almost 4 per year. That might sound pretty encouraging to new comet hunters, until they learn that the average number of hours the typical amateur spent searching for a comet before finding one was about 420. Clearly, this is not an activity for impatient personalities.

What do comet hunters do if they think they have found a new comet? First, they must check the object’s location in an atlas of the sky to make sure it really is a comet. Since the first sighting of a comet usually occurs when it is still far from the Sun and before it sports a significant tail, it will look like only a small, fuzzy patch. And through most amateur telescopes, so will nebulae (clouds of cosmic gas and dust) and galaxies (distant groupings of stars). Next, they must check that they have not come across a comet that is already known, in which case, they will only get a pat on the back instead of fame and glory. Then they must re-observe or re-image it sometime later to see whether its motion in the sky is appropriate for comets.

Often, comet hunters who think they have made a discovery get another comet hunter elsewhere in the country to confirm it. If everything checks out, the place they contact is the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts (http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/). If the discovery is confirmed, the bureau will send the news out to astronomers and observatories around the world. One of the unique rewards of comet hunting is that the discoverer’s name becomes associated with the new comet—a bit of cosmic fame that few hobbies can match.

David levy.