Pojmanski Comet in View

Wolfwood writes "For the Astronomers - the Pojmanksi Comet is a very recently discovered comet, magnitude 5.3, and is currently viewable in the morning sky around 5 am in the North America."

Comments

Should be Comet Pojmanski really

[Trapezium Artist]

Sounds a bit picky, but a more proper way to refer to it is "Comet Pojmanski", rather than "the Pojmanski Comet". Nevertheless, it's very good to see my old friend Grzegorz having visible success with his automated all-sky monitoring cameras (ASAS) down in Chile.

Amateurs work hard to learn the sky in sufficient detail so as to be able to recognise new interlopers such as comets as they search each night, whereas Grzegorz's system is fully automated both in terms of taking the CCD images and in searching through the data for new objects and monitoring variability in known objects: the hard work lies in writing the software. The discovery of two comets is good, but almost a sideshow compared to the vast amount of useful data on transients, novae, variable stars, and so on which the ASAS project has accumulated over the years.

Returning to Comet Pojmanski finally, it's moving into the northern sky now, so even though it's not predicted to get any brighter, it should be available for more of us to see with binoculars in the early morning sky.