Comets for 2005
I get this really good newsletter from Sky and Telescope every week that describes what’s good to see in the heavens in the coming days, weeks, or months. You don’t need to subscribe to their magazine to get the newsletter. It contains some ads, so the more the merrier. Subscribe here:
http://SkyandTelescope.com
I made a targetted Google request to specifically find out what comets might be good to see in 2005. I kind of missed Machholz’s brightest showing in February and early March. I suppose I could try and hunt for it but I think it’s too dim for me to find.
Anyway, I found a nice site which talks about all of the comets that we might see in 2005 (none visible to the naked eye). The author goes off on a bunch of history on each comet, which was very interesting.
An interesting programming project popped into my head. I have to think about it a bit more since there is a lot of software out there and the idea is probably implemented already.
The idea is to plugin to Outlook or otherwise present an annual calendar of astronomical events. The calendar would obviously be decorated with the phases of the moon, phases of the inner planets, positions of the Jovian and Saturnian moons. The calendar could access public weather data and show a 7–day forecast as icons in each day-box. You could plan observing sessions and put notes into any day, week, or month.