May 19, 2004
Comet watchers keep eye on sky
Rogers Observatory provides glimpse at Neat and Linear
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
That smudge in the sky sporting a tail is the comet Neat, one of two comets visible in the night sky this month.
Neat and the other comet, Linear, will be showcased on clear weekend nights this month at the Rogers Observatory. Every Friday and Saturday night in May, volunteers from the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will host a comet watch for the public from 10 p.m. until midnight.
The 14-inch telescope in the observatory's dome as well as three other smaller telescopes will be available to view the comet as well as Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and four of its moons.
For some area residents, the comet watch is a must on their to do list. The Mosley family of Traverse City was among the 200 people who stopped by the observatory to peer through the telescopes at the heavens.
"Oh, my gosh, it's so cool when you look through there and see it, it doesn't even look real," enthused Sheila Mosley, who attended Saturday's session with her two daughters and some of their friends. "We've come to a lot of different events here and I used to take classes here."
Mosley's older daughter, Samantha, 9, was encouraged to come to the event by Linda Egeler, her third-grade teacher at Cherry Knoll Elementary School. Egeler just led her students through a unit on astronomy and wanted them to have a real-life encounter with that branch of science.
"I think it becomes more real when they see it, it gives kids a sense of how far away things are," said Egeler, noting that her kids had a high interest in astronomy. "We've come here several years and in the past we've seen a lunar eclipse and last summer you could see a different galaxy."
The comet Neat is located in the sky just above a star cluster called the Beehive, which is in the constellation Cancer. Although initial cloudiness Saturday night threatened to cover up the sky show, the clouds eventually cleared.
The comets are visible to the naked eye under clear conditions. A pair of binoculars or a telescope might enable viewers to see jets of gas erupting from the comet's nucleus.
"The comet appeared about the same brightness as the star cluster, the same sized patch of fuzz in the sky, but there's a tail coming out of the comet," said Jerry Dobek, an astronomer with Northwestern Michigan College and curator of the Rogers Observatory. "As it got darker, people were able to see the comet much better and just a few of them who stuck around could see it with a naked eye."
Comets are important and fire the imagination, said Dobek, in part because they contain clues to the history of the solar system and the Earth. He noted that an unmanned expedition called Stardust will return in January 2006 bringing part of a comet called Wild 2 with it.
"The water on Earth may have come from these comets and when we talk about life on Earth, were did the particles, the amino acids, the organic material, come from?" asked Dobek. "It may have appeared from comets. Comets may have been an important beginning for our planet."
Comet watches will be held at the Rogers Observatory on Friday and Saturdays during May, from 10 p.m. until midnight if skies are clear. The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society also regularly hosts public viewing nights at the observatory. For more information on these events, call the observatory at 946-1787. A regularly scheduled public viewing on May 28 will be extended to include comet watch.