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Hi Ed,
Edward Erbeck wrote:
And I feel you've done much to encourage the viewing of Comets with
your Web Page. Heck who knows, via serendipity you might have
encouraged someone to become another discoverer of Comets!
Or even just a "serious" observer who makes estimates of magnitude and
diameters. There are fewer and fewer of these, particularly in North
America.
But mostly I just want so share the fun I've found observing these
things. I was at a star party one time and I went around pointing
people's scopes at comets. They were all really impressed that there
were comets visible in their scopes that they didn't even know were
there. So I realized that I was doing a kind of amateur astronomy that
few others were doing, sort of a hybrid of deep sky and solar system
observing. I set out to share the fun I was having as a presonal project.
But what I didn't realize at the time was that for large numbers of
people it's about more than just what you look at in the sky; amateur
observing actually breaks down into separate cliques. There is the deep
sky clique and the "serious" comet clique. I have discovered that to
some extent *both* cultures view Comet Chasing as something outside of
their interest. I think that's a shame because it's clear to me that
the comet community could use reinvigorating with new blood and the deep
sky community is seemingly always looking for new kinds of faint fuzzies
to hunt down.
Clear skies,
Greg
--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)
SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html
To reply take out your eye
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