Subj: Fwd: AstroAlert: Bright New Comet Date: 7/14/99 5:42:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time From: DFranck To: Phikent new comet just found.... ----------------- Forwarded Message: Subj: AstroAlert: Bright New Comet Date: 7/14/99 12:54:32 PM Pacific Daylight Time From: rsinnott@skypub.com (Roger W. Sinnott) Sender: owner-comet@skypub.com To: comet@skypub.com NEW COMET 1999 N2 On July 13th, Australian amateur Daniel W. Lynn of Kinglake West, Victoria, discovered an 8th-magnitude comet moving rapidly northeast through the constellation Hydra. He was using 10 x 50 binoculars. The comet is very low in the western evening sky and most readily visible from the Southern Hemisphere, but it seems likely that it will become better placed for Northern Hemisphere observers during the next week or so. The discovery was confirmed by V. F. de Assis Neto in Brazil and also by F. B. Zoltowski in Australia. Zoltowski detected a short tail on CCD images obtained with his 30-cm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. His measurements give the comet's position and direction of motion as follows: Date: 1999 July 14 at 9h UT R.A. 9h 52.1m Dec. -14d 29' Motion: 3.68 deg/day toward p.a. 53 deg (northeast) No orbit has yet been calculated. The announcement was made on IAU Circular 7222, issued today by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, International Astronomical Union, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. The above information has been adapted from that circular, which has further details of the discovery (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/cbat.html). The editors at Sky & Telescope magazine are interested in receiving reports and images of this comet for possible publication. Sky & Telescope, P.O. Box 9111, Belmont, Mass. 02478, U.S.A. Roger W. Sinnott Associate Editor Sky & Telescope