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In this Discussion
- John_Brady May 2012
- rogstal May 2012
- Stephen May 2012
Comets
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hi rogstal. i know how you feel. the trouble is we just dont know when the next ''great'' comet will appear. it could be discovered tonight or next year nobody knows. there are some comets visible through a telescope and possibly binoculars but they would be very dim and probably unimpressive. i think halleys comet wont be back untill 2060 or something like that. comets can take thousands of years to make their round trip and new ones are always being discovered and who knows, one of them could be a great comet! i think most of the time they are not discovered untill they are almost on top of us! which is, well.... kind of scary...
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hi Stephen, thanks for your comment. I'm getting on a bit & would love to see another great one. Back in the mid to late 60's can remember seeing this brilliant comet called Kahutek, excuse the spelling, was up in the sky for weeks. At the time I was working out of Didcot depot on the railway, so I had great views as most of the time was spent working nights. Halley's comet was so far away, unless you had some idea of where it was, you had no chance of finding it, plus a very good scope.
Great talking to you.
Keep watching, we may not be alone.
Take care
Rogstal -
Hi Stephen and Rogstal,
Remember Hale Bopp in 1995? Wow, what a great site that was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale–Bopp
...and what about Comet Lovejoy recently, ok not actually visible in the northern hemisphere, but some great videos of it surviving a death dive towards the Sun (2nd video from top) http://astronomycentral.co.uk/astronomy-and-space-videos
