Goodrich – A celestial event will light up the night beginning this week.
Comet NEAT, discovered in 2001, will soon be visible in this hemisphere.
Look for the comet about 45 minutes to an hour after sunset from approximately May 5 through May 23 in the western sky, says Goodrich resident Richard Walker.
Teachers and students may remember Walker from field trips to the Longway Planetarium in Flint’he’s the astronomer there.
‘The main thing you need to do is find some place with a nice clear dark view to the west,? said Walker, who plans to help sky-watchers at Longway’s May 15 Comet NEAT party in Flushing.
Walker will also be looking for the comet at home.
Because it’s the first time Comet NEAT will make an appearance, it’s hard to predict how bright its dust-tail will appear.
‘We definitely will be able to see it’it just might not be spectacular,? said Walker. ‘It’s hard to predict unless it’s been around several times.?
Don’t give up on seeing the comet if you don’t have a telescope. The best way to view the comet may actually be through a pair of ordinary field binoculars, Walker says. ‘The problem with a telescope is you see such a tiny piece of the sky at a time. With binoculars you have a much wider field of view.?
Since skiing season is past, the Mt. Holly lights won’t interfere with comet-spotting in Goodrich, said Walker.
Comet NEAT should follow the same path as the Cancer constellation, located between Gemini and Leo near the bright star in the western sky, Sirius.
Comet NEAT, the first comet visible to the human eye since Hale-Bopp in 1997, is named for the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) computerized program that discovered it. Programs like NEAT and LINEAR detect asteroids coming near the Earth, but discover numerous comets as well.
To learn more about comets go to http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/resources/explorations/comets/teacher/scientificbackground.html or
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/comet_double_040319.html.