[Chaos-l] Dual Observing Last Night

[Robert Nielsen]

While Mike and Chris and Jayme were at SRSP last night, I was at Medoc ... although I plan on joining everyone at Staunton River SP next weekend.   While we were there, we saw quite a few meteors (including one ... a guess a "bolide" ... that split into three or four parts and "exploded" with a flash) and a comet.

The comet was quite nice.  It might be less impressive in the light pollution of Chapel Hill/Durham, but at a darker place I bet it will look good.  And I expect next weekend at SRSP, it will look great.

It has a couple of different names, I think ... but in my planetarium program it is called "C/2009 P1 Garradd".   It was actually the "Astronomy Picture of the Day" last Wednesday ... and I looked at that image again and it really did look like that at Medoc, with a faint split tail and a bright nucleus.   Some of my friends there said it had changed over the past week, and seemed to be getting brighter ... so it might be something to look for over the coming weeks and months.

To find it, look for either M15 (the globular cluster) or Enif (Epsilon Pegasi) and it is kinda in between them ... a little toward the north and east.  It isn't difficult to spot, once you know where to look.

And if you come to the session next week (either the CHAOS session at SRSP or the Morehead session on Jordan Lake) I'll be happy to show it to you or you can show it to the public.

Robert

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