Tuesday, January 16, 2007

 

Waiting for the Comet


We have spent the last couple of evenings around sunset up on the top of Mt Ainslie trying to see Comet McNaught. This comet was discovered by Dad's friend Dr Rob McNaught, who works at Siding Spring Observatory. It is the brightest comet for a long time, but we have had a bit of a problem seeing it. Here I am with a group from the Canberra Astronomical Society, all set up and waiting for sunset. On Sunday night we couldn't see the comet because cloud was in the way. Last night we had lots of smoke from bushfires making it hard to see things low near the horizon, but we managed to see it for an half-hour or so just after sunset. Mum and Dad are excited. They say this comet is one of the brightest they have seen and both of them saw the tail so it probably wasn't imagination. Lots of people were up there with us but most of them seemed disappointed because they were expecting something much bigger, brighter and fast-moving. Us astro-bears know that most comets aren't like that.

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