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LUWD #0057 The Orion Nebula

On: February 2, 2021

You could start the February Messier Marathon three hours after twilight and not miss a thing. – DON MACHHOLZContinue Reading

LUWD #0054 Earthshine

By: Donald Machholz

On: January 13, 2021

The locator is the terminator. Now look on the dark side of this borderline to see the earthshine, which is reflected sunshine, why does this rhyme? – 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]