Department of Physics AstroLab

References: Comets

  • Comet Bodies - A Primer from the Gemini Observatory Newsletter December 2005, page 19

  • The Nine Planets web site; see the section on Comets.

  • IAU Minor Planet Center pages on Comets: much useful information can be found here including the ephemerides and orbital elements for currently observable comets.

  • British Astronomical Association: Comet Section

  • NASA's Comet Observation Home Page : much useful information can be found here.

  • LSST science book has an excellent chapter of what the new generation of wide-field survey telescopes like Pan_STARRS, LSST, etc will learn about the Solar System.

  • David Jewitt's Comet Pages

  • 157 FAQs about Asteroids, Meteors and Comets ( The Astronomy Cafe)

  • Why Study Comets A short article by Donald Yeomans.

  • "Great Comets in History" by J.E.Borlte, Sky & Telescope, January 1997, p44.

  • The Bright Comet Chronicles by J.E.Bortle

  • Sky & Telescope, July 1996 issue contains a number of articles on Comet Hyakutake and Sky & Telescope, May 1997 issue has a good article on Comet Hale-Bopp: "The Great Evening Comet" by E.L.Aguirre.

  • "Comet Sleuthing on the Internet" by Gary Seronik, Sky & Telescope, June 1998, p63.

  • The Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project is described here.

  • Great Comets by Robert Burnham.

  • Spaceguard UK

  • UK NEO report

  • Nova Astronomics' ECU (available on AstroLab PCs) can be used to find the positions of specified comets and produce finding charts.

  • Very accurate positions can be found at JPL's HORIZONS System via their Ephemeris Generator. Note the different types of positions listed, i.e. ICRF/J2000.0 and apparent.

  • A finding chart of the target area can be produced using images from the Digital Sky Survey. Retrieve an image from the DSS ( LEDAS, STScI, ESO). Save the images in FITS format and display on the PC with the FITSVIEW program.

  • Astrolab's Astrometry References

  • Astrolab's Orbital Determination References

  • Chapter 7 of "The Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing" by Richard Berry and James Burnell is an excellent introduction to astrometry. This book also contains very good general information about the reduction of CCD data. A copy is available in the AstroLab and in the University's Main Library

  • Christian Buil's CCD Astronomy is also another excellent book. A copy is available in the AstroLab and in the University's Main Library

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