Travelers in the Night Eps. 387 & 388: Long Winter Nights & Greg's Comet

0:00It's the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, coming in 3, 2, 1.

0:21Winter nights can be exhausting, productive, as well as sometimes frustrating for asteroid hunters. At the 60-inch telescope on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, near winter solstice, the night's observing starts at 6.30 p.m. and continues till after 6 a.m., which, combined with start-up and end tasks, makes the asteroid hunter's workday more than 13 hours long. On such a recent long winter work night, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fulls discovered an impressing total of 18 new Earth-approaching objects.

0:55On the other hand, on the next three-night shift, I was treated to one night which was clear, followed by two nights which were dominated by the first big snowstorm of the season. The best nights are clear, cold, and calm, with asteroid images which are small, intense points of light. Such a night is said to have good seeing. Nights which are clear but have bad seeing, with fuzzy star and asteroid images, due to atmospheric turbulence and high winds, makes the discovery of faint objects virtually impossible.

1:27High winds can and do shake the telescope, producing double images of every object. Nights which consist of sporadic clear holes in the clouds also yield few new discoveries. Fishing what we call sucker holes in the clouds is very frustrating, since it is hard to verify a new discovery under such conditions. Then there are nights which are perfectly clear, but we have to keep the dome closed because of snow on it. Then there are those nights which are clear, with good seeing from start to finish,

1:59on which the asteroid hunter makes new discoveries, while being treated to views of millions of stars, gas clouds, and galaxies, which inspire a childlike sense of wonder. For Travelers in the Night, this is Dr. Al Grauer. Go to travelersinthenight.org, program 424, for more information.

2:23My Catalina Sky Survey teammate, Greg Leonard, was searching for Earth-approaching objects with our 60-inch telescope on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, when he discovered a new, interesting comet moving through the constellation of Leo. After Greg posted his discovery observations on the Minor Planet Center's Near-Earth Object Confirmation page, it was observed over the next three weeks by 10 different observatories around the world. These data were used to calculate the details of the new object's 51-year path around the Sun

2:57and give it the name Comet C-2017-W2 Leonard. Greg's newly discovered comet's orbital plane is almost at a right angle to the paths of the planets and most of the asteroids, so that it spends most of its time in the lonely space high above or far below the rest of the members of our solar system. Riding with Comet C-2017-W2 Leonard would bring a space traveler into the inner solar system about once per human lifetime.

3:29Greg's comet receives only mild solar heating, since at its closest it is about three times further from the Sun than we are, making it unlikely to ever be bright for human observers. At its farthest from the Sun, Comet Leonard is in a very cold region, receives less than 1% of the solar energy than we do, and is likely to have a surface temperature of about minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Greg's comet is likely to remain as it is for eons,

4:01since it spends so much of its time far from the Sun and the gravitational tugs of most of the rest of the members of our solar system. For Travelers in the Night, this is Dr. Al Grauer. Go to travelersinthenight.org program 425 for more information. You are listening to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast.

4:32Cool.

4:39The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. Audio post-production is by me, Richard Drumm. Project management is by Aviva Yamani. And hosting is donated by LibSyn.com. This content is released under a Creative Commons Attribution, non-commercial 4.0 international license. Please share what you love, but don't sell what's free. This show is made possible thanks to the generous donations of people like you.

5:11Please consider supporting our show on patreon.com forward slash CosmoQuestX and get access to bonus content. Without your passion and contribution, we won't be able to share the stories and inspire the worlds. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with the listeners worldwide. As we wrap up today's episode, we're looking forward to unraveling more stories from the universe. With every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories

5:42and each milestone in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it. Until next time, let the stars guide your curiosity. I'll end it next time. Happyán water. Good for中共. Thank you. Bye-bye. Good forług. Good for

6:13delivery. Bye-bye. On Sunday. See you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

6:22Yes. Bye-bye.