ROB McNAUGHT MAKES 35th Discovery!

[Outbackmanyep]

Well done Rob!

Fair dinkum! 35 comets!

Keep going! Maybe 40 by the end of the year!?
Who wants to bet on that!?

Congrats!

[iceman (Mike)]

C'mon Terry, you're letting the amateurs down!

[Ric]

Another one, well done.

He's having a great run at the moment.

Cheers

[leon]

Rob, you are kidding, an other one.

I have the last one on my wall, congrats mate

Leon

[CometGuy]

Way to go Rob! I see Gordon (loomberah) is starting to amass a few comets as well.

See Robs comment on one of the lists today saying funding may dry up at the end of 2008 and he mentioned he might start an amateur comet search!

Terry

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Originally Posted by iceman

C'mon Terry, you're letting the amateurs down!

With the weather we've had up here Mike, I reacon Terry is way on top for percentages


Oh and congrats Rob McNaught

[spacezebra (Petra)]

Congrats Rob McNaught

More to celebrate at Border Stargaze 2007!

Cheers Petra

[CometGuy]

Paul,

Yeh, it hasn't been the best recently but still managed to get 8 search sessions so far this month (including this morning). Really enjoy the detail you get in images with the colder and clearer weather!

Terry

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Detail How are you doing it with the jetstream the way it is???

[CometGuy]

Well at 200mm focal length seeing doesn't really matter, but transparency does - this morning was excellent.

Terry

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

It has been clear the past few days that's for sure. Damn chilly but beautiful and dark and clear.

[Ingo]

How do you find comets?

Anyways, great find!

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

"How do you find comets?"

It takes dedication, perseverance, attention to detail, lots of hard work - things that these guys have in truckloads to succeed the way they do.

Oh yeah, you need an actual comet as well!



Seriously though: generally it's a matter of taking lots and lots of images of the sky, with repeat images of the same piece of sky at relatively short time intervals, and with enough detail in each image that a comet would show, then by comparing successive images of the same small pieces of sky they look for something, some tiny blurry blob, that appears to move in relation to everything else in the image.

[PCH (Paul)]

Ingo,

thanks for asking ! - I was thinking exactly the same thing but was afraid of sounding a bit thick

Steve,

thanks for the easy to understand reply. I thought for sure there must be something highly technical to finding comets, but what you describe sure makes sense - even to dummies like me

Cheers,
Paul