Hunting and Imaging CometsFor many astronomers, the holy grail of observation is to discover a comet, not least because comets always bear the name of their discoverer! Hunting and Imaging Comets was written for comet hunters and digital imagers who want to discover, rediscover, monitor, and make pictures of comets using astronomical CCD cameras and DSLRs. The old days of the purely visual comet hunter are pretty much over, but this is not to say that amateurs have lost interest in finding comets. The books also covers the discovery of comet fragments in the SOHO image data, CCD monitoring of older comets prone to violent outbursts, the imaging of new NEOs (Near Earth Objects) that have quite often been revealed as comets - not asteroids - by amateur astronomers, and the finding of recent comets impacting Jupiter. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Great Comet Discoveries Throughout History | 33 |
Professional TwentyFirst Century Comet Hunters | 83 |
Amateur TwentyFirst Century Comet Hunters | 101 |
Finding the Next HaleBopp with your Gear | 127 |
Comets that Have Been Missed by the Pros | 157 |
Recovering Returning Periodic Comets | 177 |
Discovering Comets Using SOHO | 203 |
Monitoring Outbursting Comets | 229 |
Comet Imaging Techniques | 251 |
Lenses Telescopes Astrographs and Mountings | 311 |
Imaging Comets Remotely and via the Internet | 331 |
Comet Photometry | 339 |
A Few of the Worlds Keenest Comet Imagers | 367 |
Appendix Comet Resources
| 383 |
| 389 | |
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Common terms and phrases
addition already amateur astronomers aperture appear arc-sec asteroid background become bright brighten camera century close coma comet discovery comet imagers cometary course covered dark deep designed detail detected discovered distance dust Earth ecliptic estimates exposures faint field filter frames Hale–Bopp Halley head hour January later length less light LINEAR look magnitude March Martin measurement mentioned million Mobberley months motion mount moving Newtonian night nucleus object Observatory observers October optical orbit outburst package passed patrols perihelion period comets photographic photometry pixel plane position precise prior processing professional range reached recorded recovered region result seen short Siding similar simply SOHO solar solar system space stack star Survey SWAN tail taken telescope track twilight typical visual weeks