From: palmer@sfu.ca (Leigh Palmer)
Subject: P/Swift-Tuttle at last!
Organization: Simon Fraser University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:01:31 GMT

British Columbia is not the best place to live if you like to look at the night
sky regularly. Last night I finally saw the comet, and I wrote the following to
my introductory astronomy students. The idea is to use some of the terminology
I have been teaching them in ordinary communication. While the event was still
truly exciting for me (though probably not so for those used to the luxury of a
reliable sky) I wrote it down:

Monday evening at 1720 I emerged from a two-hour committee committee meeting
here at the university on a hilltop to be greeted by what has been an unusual
sight for more than a month now. The sky was clear, and I saw Venus in the
evening for my first time this year, boring a hole in the sky low in the
southwest at magnitude -4 or so. Since I hadn't seen the sky in so long I had
to dismiss the standard checkoff questions: 

"Landing lights?
No; it's not moving.
Supernova?
Too bad.
Venus!"

I was even foolish enough to look hard for Mercury. That's how nice the sky
looked, all the way down to Vancouver Island on the horizon. Silly me! The sky
was still fairly bright, and I knew it was not yet time to look for P/Kegler-
Swift-Tuttle-Kiuchi, which some are now calling "Marsden's Comet", the famous,
threatening cosmic iceberg which I had not seen, even though it had been around
since September.

I had missed it on Monday of the previous week because I had had to attend an
evening meeting on the first clear night in a month, and I had no visual aid
with me, not even binoculars. This time, however, I was prepared. My Russian
20x60s were in the car, already mounted on their tripod. Two of my students had
already been to my office, expecting that I would be going out to look. They
had left twenty minutes before I got there, leaving me an e-mail note. I
quickly alerted my students via a unix maillist I had set up for that purpose
that I would be observing from the university. The system had worked well two
weeks previously when a brief opening in the sky had given us a view of some
nice sunspots during the day. Several students had showed up for that event, so
I expected I might succeed again.

I made a crude finder chart for the comet which, at that moment, was at an
altitude above 45 degrees, and 15 degrees below Vega. (Any amateur astronomer
who has not yet treated himself to a microcomputer is technologically deprived.
British Columbia amateur astronomers may see the sky only on a cathode ray tube
for weeks at a time!) I rushed to set up the binoculars in the quadrangle and
found, disappointingly, that while I could easily see brighter objects, I
couldn't even see Hercules with my unaided eye. Haze, the nearly full moon, and
city lights were conspiring to defeat me once again. With a sinking heart I
extended the tripod legs, removed the lenscaps, and pointed the binoculars at a
point I reckoned to be about 15 degrees below Vega. Putting my eyes to the
instrument I was thrilled. There was a fuzzy patch, smack in the middle of my
tunnel-like two degree field of view!


                       *                                        #6591

                        *                                       #6584





                                       ...
                                      :::::                      Yes!
                                       :::
                           *                                    #6570





                                               *                #6528


Murphy was obviously either asleep or he had pointed me at M13. I was fully
aware of the latter possibility. The stars shown (their Yale Bright Star
Catalog numbers added later) are all about sixth magnitude, as is the comet
itself - and as is M13!) I watched the comet for a half hour. Murphy had
another trick or two up his sleeve, of course. The comet faded from view, and I
was convinced I had breathed on the eyepieces, something I try to remember not
to do. It was, of course, the haze, and it came and went several times while I
observed. I drew the field, convinced myself the thing had moved, and went home
happy. The only disappointments were that only my wife had joined me in seeing
it, and I could not see any trace of the tail described by others. Now that I
really believe it is there I'll get the telescope out next time.

On arriving home I fired up my Macintosh and produced a two degree high chart
of the comet's position. My drawing showed that the comet, about ten arcminutes
in diameter, was within five arcminutes of its predicted position relative to
the sixth magnitude stars shown in the diagram above. There is something very
satisfying about finishing an evening off in that way. I recommend it.

Leigh

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