‘Halley Watch’ Can Tell You How to Do It

Up-to-date information to help people locate Halley’s comet in the Southland’s skies is available to anyone who calls one of two numbers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The service, provided by the International Halley Watch, is designed to serve both the needs of lay persons who know little about celestial observations and of more experienced amateurs who want to know where to point their telescopes. The phone messages will be updated daily to tell listeners where to look for the comet, its brightness and velocity, and the location of nearby stars and constellations.

Mary Firth, an amateur astronomer who works with the watch, a loosely organized group mounting history’s largest study of a comet, said she receives many calls daily from persons who want to verify that what they have seen was indeed the comet.

‘Easy to Find’

“It’s easy to find the comet now with binoculars,” she said.

Halley is considerably brighter than computers had indicated it would be at this point, although it is still just a dim, fuzzy ball in the heavens, she added. Moonlight will be so dim that it will not overwhelm the comet during the next few days, offering a good opportunity to be seen by anyone who ventures into an area where city lights do not diminish the view, she said.

“We are coming up now to a period when moonlight will not interfere for the next 10 days,” Firth said. “The window is considered the 8th (of December) through the 13th, but you could probably extend that to the 17th.”

The comet will be just slightly south of directly overhead at about 7:30 p.m., but it will set by about midnight, she said. Each evening the comet will set a little earlier.

Bright Moon by 17th

Although the comet will continue to grow brighter, by the 17th the moon will be so bright that the comet will diminish in luminosity. By Jan. 1 it will be visible again, but only briefly during the early evening.

The best view of the comet for this region is still months away. By mid-March the comet should be sporting a tail, but it will be visible only between about 4:30 a.m. and sunrise.

Halley will make its closest approach to the Earth in April, but it will be so far south that only those who venture to the mountaintops are likely to get much of a view from this far north, Firth said.

Inexperienced observers can call (818) 354-4300. The number for amateur astronomers is (818) 354-4301.