Comet NEOWISE

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]

Machholz is considered to be one of the inventors of the Messier marathon, which is a race to observe all the Messier objects in a single night.

Comet NEOWISE

LUWD #0031 Eyepatches, Perseid Meteor Shower, Comet NEOWISE

LUWD #0030 Comet NEOWISE, Teaching A Continuing Education Course

LUWD #0028 Comet NEOWISE, Saturn, Sagittarius, and observatories

LUWD #0027 Astronomical Observatories, Comet NEOWISE, Scorpius, M4

LUWD #0026 Lunar Eclipse, the traveling astronomer and Cygnus

Stargazer Arizona Observatory

Donald Edward Machholz

Homemade 29×130 Binoculars