From: bcollins@utdallas.edu (Arlin B. Collins)
Subject: Sky&Telescope  Weekly News Bulletin
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 01:51:08 GMT

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 SKY & TELESCOPE NEWS BULLETIN
 October 5, 1992
 
 COMET SWIFT-TUTTLE RETURNS!
 On September 26th long-lost Comet Swift-Tuttle, parent of the Perseid
 meteor shower, was spotted for the first time in 130 years by Japanese
 comet hunter Tsuruhiko Kiuchi. Coming fast on the heels of the
 surprisingly intense Perseid display in August the recovery boosts
 expectations for a major Perseid shower next year. 
 
 Kiuchi was sweeping just north of the bowl of the Big Dipper with his
 6-inch, 25-power binoculars when he first spied the comet as a diffuse
 glow 4 arc minutes across. Within 24 hours astronomers in Japan,
 Canada, and the United States established from its motion that the
 comet was indeed Swift-Tuttle. On September 27th Charles Morris and Don
 Machholz in California and Alan Hale in New Mexico estimated its
 brightness as 9th or 10th magnitude. 
 
 Observations of Swift-Tuttle made during its three-month apparition in
 1862 suggested a return date between 1979 and 1983. But its failure to
 appear on schedule focused new attention on a 1973 study by Brian
 Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. After
 noticing a remarkable similarity in the orbits of Swift-Tuttle and
 Kegler's comet of 1737, Marsden found an alternate solution -- which he
 deemed less likely -- that postponed the return until 1992. The
 recovery data show that the comet will pass closest to the Sun on
 December 12th, just 17 days later than Marsden's prediction. 
 
 Right now Comet Swift-Tuttle just a few degrees above the Big Dipper in
 Ursa Major, working its way down the stars of the handle. In the coming
 weeks it be low in the western sky at dusk, brightening as much as
 tenfold as it glides rapidly through Hercules and Aquila toward
 Sagittarius. Here are the comet's positions, based on Brian Marsden's
 latest orbital elements, for 0 hour Universal time and equinox 2000: 
 
          R.A. (2000) Dec.
          ================
 Oct. 03  12h 30m  +59.3 deg.
 Oct. 05  12h 45m  +59.3 deg.
 Oct. 07  13h 01m  +59.1 deg.
 
 SETI SPARED
 Over the summer Congress nearly canceled NASA's fledgling effort to
 search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. But a House-Senate
 conference committee has granted the project $12 million for fiscal
 1993, nearly all of what NASA requested. The about-face came just in
 time, as project scientists kicked off the 10-year search effort on
 October 12th -- just two weeks into the new fiscal year. Astronomers
 plan to use NASA antennas and state-of-the-art detectors to scan the
 entire sky for extraterrestrial radio beacons over a wide range of
 frequencies. A second set of detectors will be attached to large radio
 antennas for more sensitive scrutiny of hundreds of nearby, Sunlike
 stars. 
 
 ----- THIS WEEK'S "SKY AT A GLANCE"
 
 OCT. 4 -- SUNDAY
 
 Saturn's brightest moon Titan can be seen in a small telescope four
 ring lengths west of the planet this evening through Tuesday evening. 
 
 OCT. 5 -- MONDAY 
 The waxing gibbous Moon is near Saturn this evening. 
 The eclipsing variable star Algol will be at minimum brightness,
 magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple of hours centered
 on 11:44 p.m. Eastern daylight time. It takes several additional hours
 to fade and to brighten. 
 Early Tuesday morning Mars forms an isosceles triangle with Castor and
 Pollux, 12 degrees from each. 
 
 OCT. 6 -- TUESDAY 
 The red long-period variable star R Cygni should be at maximum light
 (7th magnitude) around this date. 
 
 OCT. 7 -- WEDNESDAY 
 As sunset fades, use binoculars to examine Venus just above the
 west-southwest horizon. Can you see 2nd-magnitude Alpha Librae about 1
 degree away? 
 
 OCT. 8 -- THURSDAY 
 Algol is at mid-minimum at 8:32 p.m. EDT. 
 
 OCT. 9 -- FRIDAY 
 * 
 
 OCT. 10 -- SATURDAY 
 * 
 
 ----- THIS WEEK'S PLANET ROUNDUP
 
 MERCURY is hidden in the glare of the Sun. 
 
 VENUS is just above the west-southwestern horizon in bright twilight
 after sunset. 
 
 MARS, in Gemini, rises around 11:30 p.m. and shines high overhead by
 dawn. 
 
 JUPITER is very low in the east during morning twilight. 
 
 SATURN, in Capricornus, is the lone bright "star" in the south during
 evening hours. 
 
 URANUS and NEPTUNE, 6th and 8th magnitude respectively, are in the
 south-southwest after dusk, in Sagittarius. 
 
 PLUTO is disappearing into the sunset. 
 
 -----
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 CompuServe, Mondays.
-- 
Arlin B Collins     CompuServe:  INTERNET:bcollins@utdallas.edu   :-)