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(meteorobs) Comet and asteroid and more meteors
Thinking ahead a little. As soon as the Moon is out of the
way, if not sooner, weather permitting it will be time to look
for the current "bright" comet, C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR). It's
being reported at about +6 right now (observer in Africa using
7x50 binoculars) and is still brightening. Later in the month
it will go very far to the south. Gary Kronk's page on it:
http://cometography.com/lcomets/2000wm1.html
Then on Dec 15 or 16, as I just noticed on the SpaceWeather.com
Web site Tuesday evening, a near-earth asteroid, 1998 WT24,
will pass within 0.0125 AU of Earth, and it's estimated that
it will be +9.3 magnitude at closest approach, and there will
be no interference from the Moon. A good Web page for it is:
http://neo.jpl.nasadot gov/cgi-bin/db?name=1998+WT24&group=all
I used the "high-accuracy ephemeris" generator linked there,
and it appears that 1998 WT24 will be well-placed for Austin
on the night of closest approach. (I used that ephemeris
generator for comet C/2000 WM1 also.) This could be a chance
to add a fast-moving near-Earth asteroid to your astrophotos!
Finally, the night of Thursday/Friday, Dec. 13/14 is the
maximum of the Geminids, with the peak time predicted for
4:00 UT (10:00 p.m. CST Thursday Dec. 13). That's very near
new Moon. The Geminids are the second meteor shower that I
saw. That was in Dec. 1996, from Shipe Park, when I saw 15
or 16 of them in probably about an hour while I was observing
satellites and meteors that morning.
I'll close here with another "weather permitting".
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin
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