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Reports from Geisei Observatory<March 1, 2000>


• P/1999 V1(Catalina)
It has been uneventful these days only faint comets being visible. Will the appearance of a great comet surprise us soon? Observations at Geisei have been continuing in sub-zero temperatures. I have been using an old way of tracking or guiding called the Metcalf method, which was devised in the first half of the 20th century.
I have provided observation data here before reporting them to the Smithsonian.

I tracked C/1999 A1, which may disappear on January 27, using this Metcalf guiding method with three 30-minute exposures. Romer at Flagstaff usually used 60-120-minute exposures. In the dome I felt like being frozen in ice and was there for as long as 7 hours!

    PJ99V010   1999 11 12.81250 09 43 53.00 +10 21 30.3   17.5 T   372
    PJ99V010   1999 12 11.78056 10 01 17.84 +06 00 23.1   17.4 T   372
    PJ99V010   1999 12 15.76806 10 02 25.08 +05 27 51.3            372
    PJ99V010   2000 01 28.63701 09 52 39.37 +01 12 51.0   17.5 T   372
    PJ99V010   2000 01 30.65451 09 51 23.80 +01 06 46.6   18.0 T   372
    PJ99V010   2000 02 09.61085 99 44 43.71 +00 44 18.7   18.1 T   372
    PJ99V010   2000 02 11.63542 09 43 19.36 +00 41 12.5            372
    PJ99V010   2000 02 29.57153 09 31 35.66 +00 31 25.8   18.5 T   372

    T.Seki



Copyright (C) 2000 Tsutomu Seki.