Targets of Opportunity: A New Comet

Targets of Opportunity:  A New Comet

The Faulkes telescopes are programmed to respond automatically if a new Gamma-Ray Burster (GRB) is discovered by an orbiting observatory.  If you are using the telescope when the signal is beamed down to Earth, you will suddenly lose control of the telescope it having been over-ridden by the automatic Target of Opportunity (ToO) software which will slew the telescope in the direction of the new GRB in a matter of seconds and will start taking images off-line of that part of the sky.

Well another observing opportunity or ToO which Faulkes users might not know of can be found at the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page (NEOCP). See:

http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html

Here information about newly-discovered objects within our own Solar System are posted up within a few hours of them being found.  So if a school or college has an observing slot and conditions are good they might consider inspecting the NEOCP to see what has been found that day.  There may be some near-Earth asteroid or comet which they could observe.  This happened to John Cave of the British Astronomical Association as he was partway through a 'routine' observing session with the Faulkes North.  Corresponding with a colleague, Richard Miles, in real-time, it became apparent that something new and slow-moving in the constellation of Serpens had been found and reported not many minutes before John's session began.  John took a 30-second exposure of the object and it was immediately apparent that it was rather fuzzy with a faint fan-shaped tail - in other words it was a new comet!  Further images of SW40j4 were taken and its position was reported to the Minor Planet Center.  At the time of writing the comet has not yet been announced formally and so has not yet been given a name.

So if you have an observing session do consider checking the NEOCP website to see what has been discovered lately. Sometimes objects discovered in the infrared by the new WISE satellite are posted there.  If you are able to get images of a NEOCP object then do let the Faulkes team know so that positional measurements can be made and reported.

Richard Miles, BAA