Throughout human history, comets have fascinated us. They have gone from signs and portents of bad things to come to well-studied and even visited "dirty snowballs". Every year, observers search the skies, hoping to discover the Next Big Comet - Halley, Hyakutake, Hale–Bopp, McNaught. From SOHO and LINEAR to ATLAS and IRAS, numerous observatories have continued to add to the count of discovered comets. 

But it doesn't require expensive hardware or spacecraft to make similar observations from your own backyard; telescopes and even binoculars will work - at least for the brightest objects. For members of Unistellar's Citizen Science Network, however, comets can be seen at faint magnitudes under a range of night sky conditions.

 

Join Beth Johnson as she welcomes SETI Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Ariel Graykowski to this week's SETI Live to discuss the results of citizen scientist observations of comets 12P/Pons-Brooks and C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS).

Unistellar's comet activity program: https://www.unistellar.com/citizen-science/comets/

 

We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs. 

Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can!

Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too! 

Every bit helps! Thank you!

------------------------------------

Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations. 

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

------------------------------------

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].