More about the series Practical Astronomy...
This book sets the scene for the arrival of Comet ISON and those comets following it over the next few years.
Sky watchers will have already been primed for C/2012 (ISON) earlier in 2013 with the apparition of another naked-eye comet, C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), and following C/2012 S1 (ISON) there is the prospect of 2012 K1 (PanSTARRS) reaching naked-eye visibility in August 2014. And there will be other bright cometary prospects in the near future, if we take into account the latest predictions.
The author explains how sky watchers and amateur astronomers can practically follow comets, observe them, and record them. This is also a guide on how to keep abreast of the latest cometary discoveries and how to use publications, websites, programs, and apps to visualize and plan observations.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction: Setting the scene for C/2012 S1 (ISON) and incoming comets
- What is a comet and where do they come from?
- Portents of change and doom
- Great comets (including Halley’s Comet, Ikeya-Seki, IRAS-Araki-Alcock, Hyakutake, Hale-Bopp, McNaught, etc)
- Comets up close observations by space probes (VeGa, Giotto, ICE, Deep Impact, etc)
- C/2012 S1 and selected bright comets of the future
The author Peter Grego began his astronomical writing career by producing around 50 articles on astronomy and observing for the Birmingham (UK) Astronomical Society Journal (1982-1991). Through the years he has had dozens of articles appear in various publications, including Popular Astronomy, Sky & Telescope and Astronomy Now.
