Japanese Amateurs discover new comet in Virgo!

[Outbackmanyep]

From www.comethunter.de

New Discovery!: Kaoru Ikeya (Mori-machi, Shuchi-gun, Shizuoka-ken) and Shigeki Murakami (Tohkamachi, Niigata-ken) have independently discovered a comet visually using 25-cm and 46-cm reflectors, respectively, on Nov. 2, and 3. Comet C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) is about 8m and is positioned at small solar elongation in the morning sky. The first and very preliminary orbit shows perihelion already on Oct. 18, 2010, at about 1.7 AU. First follow-up observations show a strongly condensed comet at about magnitude 7-8. The comet will slowly increase its elongation and lose brightness. It may be of short-period and caught in outburst.

This is the 7th visual comet discovery for Ikeya and the 2nd for Murakami.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Stellarium data:

[C2010V1]
# Data taken from JPL/HORIZONS Ikeya-Murakami (C/2010 V1)
# correct for the specified time frame:
# Start Time : A.D. 2010-Nov-05 00:00:00.0000 CT 
# Stop Time  : A.D. 2010-Nov-05 00:00:00.0000 CT 
name                        = Ikeya-Murakami
parent                      = Sun
coord_func                  = comet_orbit
radius                      = 10
oblateness                  = 0.0
albedo                      = 1
lighting                    = true
halo                        = true
color                       = 1.0,1.0,1.0
tex_halo                    = star16x16.png
tex_map                     = nomap.png
lighting                    = false
orbit_TimeAtPericenter      = 2455492.1877177884
orbit_PericenterDistance    = 1.729960389148442
orbit_Eccentricity          = 1.000000731234232
orbit_ArgOfPericenter       = 157.6156345699147
orbit_AscendingNode         = 5.866271222517851
orbit_Inclination           = 8.943002757324033

[glenc (Glen)]

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resou...106735518.html

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

I just called Shigeki Murikami and congratulated him on his second discovery. He stayed with us over Christmas but it poured for his whole stay and we didn't see a thing. Shigeki is a dedicated visual hunter of comets in the great tradition of Japanese masters of comet hunting - Seki, Ikea, Honda... He gets up at 1 or 2 am, drives to a dark site, and searches - often in sub zero temperatures with snow on the ground. A snow hydrologist with the Japanese government, Shigeki has a very Zen approach to hunting - "when looking for comets, don't look for them". - think about it!

Richard

[Outbackmanyep]

Originally Posted by bkm2304

I just called Shigeki Murikami and congratulated him on his second discovery. He stayed with us over Christmas but it poured for his whole stay and we didn't see a thing. Shigeki is a dedicated visual hunter of comets in the great tradition of Japanese masters of comet hunting - Seki, Ikea, Honda... He gets up at 1 or 2 am, drives to a dark site, and searches - often in sub zero temperatures with snow on the ground. A snow hydrologist with the Japanese government, Shigeki has a very Zen approach to hunting - "when looking for comets, don't look for them". - think about it!

Richard

Hi Richard,
Thats great to hear, it takes a lot of hours to nab one visually if you're dedicated. I would not say this was "lucky" because that would be reserved for someone like Mr Bopp (Hale-Bopp fame) from the story regarding that comet. It is a very rare thing indeed for an amateur to discover a comet these days visually, this is the 2nd instance that i know of where Saturn has been nearby during a discovery. David Levy discovered one in 2006 (P/2006 T1 Levy) not far from Saturn!

A remarkable feat in the age of electronic survey! Well done Mr Murikami!