Abstract
Among the small bodies of the Solar System, comets attract perhaps the most attention from amateur observers. In a good year perhaps fifteen to twenty comets may come within range of amateur telescopes, maybe a couple of which might even be sufficiently bright to be seen with the aid of 10 × 50 binoculars. Most are rather faint, and require skill and patience if they are to be observed. Certainly, few come to resemble the popular image, with a long tail streaming away from the head: the objects followed by regular, specialist comet observers are more usually faint, fuzzy patches with little or no obvious tail. Only rarely are we treated to spectacular objects like C/1996 B2 Hyakutake, which appeared in the spring of 1996, or C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp, which reached naked-eye visibility a year later. The arrival of such bright objects is unpredictable, and they may be easily visible for only a few weeks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References and Resources
Aguirre, EL, “Comet Hyakutake’s spectacular performance”. Sky & Telescope92 123 – 30 (1996).
Aguirre, EL, “The great comet of 1997”. Sky & Telescope94 150 – 57 (1997).
BAA Comet Section Web Site: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/
Bortle, JE, “Great comets in history”. Sky & Telescope93 144 – 50 (1997).
Edberg, SJ, International Halley Watch Amateur Observers’ Manual for Scientific Comet Studies. Sky Publishing (1983).
Gingrich, M, “Great comets, novae, and Lady Luck”. Sky & Telescope89 6 86 – 9 (1995).
Hendrie, MJ, “The two bright comets of 1957”. Journal of the British Astronomical Association106 6 315 – 30 (1996).
International Comet Quarterly, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
James, N, “Comet C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake): The great comet of 1996”. Journal of the British Astronomical Association108 3 157 – 71 (1998).
JPL Comet Page: http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/RecentObs.html
Kronk, G, Comets: A Descriptive Catalog. Enslow (1984).
Merlin, JC, “Comets” in The Observer’s Guide to Astronomy, edited by P Martinez, Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press (1994).
Shanklin, J, “Comets” in The Observational Amateur Astronomer, edited by P Moore. Springer (1995).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bone, N. (1999). Comets. In: Observing Meteors, Comets, Supernovae and other Transient Phenomena. Practical Astronomy. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0579-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0579-4_8
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-017-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0579-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive