LUWD #0017 – Comet ATLAS, Comet SWAN, Arcturus, Loma Prieta, Moon in my mirror

On: April 28, 2020

Tagged: Arcturus, astronomy, Comet ATLAS, Comet SWAN, Loma Prieta, Machholz, podcast

Go out tonight to see Arcturus,
Not as bright or blue as Sirius,
It’s in Boötes you see,
Above his left knee,
A sight to behold for the curious
DON MACHHOLZ

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is an American amateur astronomer, who is number one in the world for visual comet discoveries. Credited with the discovery of 12 comets, that include the periodic comets 96P/Machholz, 141P/Machholz, the non-periodic C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) that were visible with binoculars in the northern sky in 2004 and 2005, C/2010 F4 (Machholz), and most recently C/2018 V1 (Machholz-Fujikawa-Iwamoto) ^[1]^[2] In 1985, comet Machholz 1985-e, was discovered using a homemade cardboard telescope with a wide aperture, 10 inches across, that gave it a broader field of view than most commercial telescopes.^[3] Amateur astronomer Machholz utilizes a variety of methods in his comet discoveries, in 1986 using 29×130 binoculars he discovered 96P/Machholz.^[4]