Old and new favourites
Jun 03, 2020
4 minutes
by David Seargent
In our May issue, we took a look at two ‘dark horse’ comets that showed some promise for amateur astronomers. Unfortunately one of them fell at the starter gate, although the second appears to be developing well.
The one that failed to live up to our hopes was C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). Following a strong surge in intrinsic brightness, a steady fading set in as the central condensation elongated and finally resolved into a line of secondary nuclei. By the latter days of April, there were enough accurate positional measurements of four of these nuclei for their individual orbits to be calculated.
It being theoretically possible that each of
You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.
Start your free 30 days