Quote:
Originally Posted by fringe_dweller
... I am glad the discovers personally are getting credit now and not just the boring old surveys name on them...
|
only when we tell the MPC at the time of the discovery report that it is a comet. Otherwise for us it will just be called C/Siding Spring, I have a couple of them as well as 5 called C/ or P/Garradd.
If it is just a moving star-like point on our images, like a typical asteroid, we just report it as an asteroid, and if the motion looks like a main belt asteroid, or at least nothing too far out of the ordinary, then it is just reported with the general astrometry and is left in the one night stands file at the MPC. It could remain there until the MPC link it with another night, or else someone independently discovers it and reports it as a comet, preferably with follow up observations (that will allow the orbit to be linked to any earlier observations).
cheers, Gordon