Comet Hunting

In this talk, I discuss what a comet is, how they orbit the sun and why that is important to comet hunters. I talk about how comets are named and I will show how visual comet hunters sweep the sky and a study on comet discovery positions. I will then talk about the sky surveys which now find most of the comets we used to find visually and the end of the visual comet hunting era.

Next, I talk about the 260-year history of comet hunting and highlight everyone who has found seven or more named comets. The second half of the talk is about my own comet hunting program, how and why I got started in 1975, and each of the 12 comets that I have visually discovered.

Speaker: Don Macholz

Attend in person or online.  See weblink for access instructions.