LUWD #0021 – Comet SWAN
Look up to the north that’s Polaris Sheltered in place its not careless Neither setting nor risin’ Stuck above the horizon With no place to… DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading
Look up to the north that’s Polaris Sheltered in place its not careless Neither setting nor risin’ Stuck above the horizon With no place to… DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading
There once was a comet named ATLAS Whose magnitude curve showed flatness It fragmented and scattered At the time it most mattered And it… DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading
It’s right to learn Right Ascension And declination requires your attention They’ll take you to the place In shallow or deep space With little to no apprehension DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading
Learn the constellation Corvus It’s not enormous It represents a crow Seen better from down below From Spring into the summer Then it’s gone, what a bummer! DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading
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 MACHHOLZContinue Reading
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.
The homemade binoculars I used to discover #96p, 2 deg S of M31. The song, “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins was playing on the radio.
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