Catch a Bright Comet in the Maine Skies
Contact: Alan Davenport, 581-1341; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — Maine will have a solar system visitor in the evening sky, which anyone can find from the backyard during the last week of February.
Comet Lulin will be closest to planet Earth on Feb. 24, and viewable from backyards through binoculars, or telescopes like the Clark refractor at the Maynard F. Jordan Observatory on the University of Maine campus, which will be open for free public viewing each clear evening Feb. 22 through March 1, from 10 p.m. – 12 a.m.
According to Alan Davenport, director of the Jordan Planetarium and Observatory, Lulin was discovered in 2007 by Japanese astronomers and officially labeled C/2007 N3. It has been growing brighter, so it should be visible in a clear sky to the unaided eye when it is closest to Earth on Feb. 24.
Comets do not streak across the sky like meteors, but they do move noticeably against the background stars from night to night, Davenport explains.
“The star chart here shows where Lulin will pass by Saturn in the constellation of Leo on the 23rd of February and visit the bright star Regulus, on the 27th of February,” Davenport says. “It passed closest to the sun on January 10, but will appear larger on the 24th when it is just 38 million miles away.”
The orbit falls entirely outside Earth’s, so there is no chance of a perilous encounter, says Davenport.
Lulin was discovered on images taken at the Lulin Observatory in Nantou, Taiwan on July 11, 2007, by Quanzhi Ye from Sun Yat-sen University. Since its discovery, it has been observed all over the world in China, Taiwan, Australia, Spain, and here in the United States, by astronomers who have plotted the orbit of the comet with reasonable precision. Comet Lulin is a one-time visitor traveling a hyperbolic path that eventually will carry it out of the solar system, never to return.
The February approach is fortunate, as it will be accessible from many Maine sites, including the Jordan Observatory, which will be open for free public viewing of Lulin.
To verify that the observatory will be open, Davenport advises calling 581-1348 after 9 p.m. each evening before coming to campus. The Jordan Planetarium website (GalaxyMaine.com) has comet watching instructions for viewing at home.