SEARCHING FOR COMET KOHOUTEK 
Joyce and Allan Reddoch 
Gary Hanes' bulletin in the last T & L suggested that 
Kohoutek might be less spectacular than previously expect¬ 
ed. It is doubtful now whether the comet has been seen by 
any unaided eyes in Ottawa. The moral of this story, 
which most astronomers knew and most of the press did not, 
is that although predicting a comet's position after it 
has been followed for a while is a fairly exact science, 
predicting its brightness is mostly guesswork. This is 
because its motion, like that of the planets and satel¬ 
lites , follows very accurately known laws of physics, but 
its brightness is a complex phenomenon, as Gary has said. 
We used Kohoutek's predicted positions given in Sky 
and Telescope* and the sky charts in Norton's Sky Atlas* 
to trace the comet's day to day path through the constel¬ 
lations. Our (typical birder's) equipment consisted of 
7 x 35 binoculars and a 20 x scope with 60 mm objective. 
We first saw the comet on November 26, one of the few 
mornings with a clear sky just before sunrise. At 5:40 
A.M. we picked it up low in the southeast, between Corvus 
and the bright star Spica, as a small, faint, elongated 
blotch directed toward the sun. Viewing time was short 
because the sky in the southeast brightened quickly as 
sunrise approached. Cloudy skies were common throughout 
the rest of November and early December, although we man¬ 
aged one more good sighting on December first. 
After the comet had gone behind the sun on December 
28, it appeared just after sunset in the evening sky close 
after the sun. In the first two weeks of January, skies 
were frequently cloudless. The comet was easy to find, 
even though it was quite faint, because it passed close 
to the two prominent planets, Jupiter and Venus. At the 
beginning of the month, the comet's tail appeared to fan 
out for only a short distance above the nucleus. By Janu¬ 
ary 9 the comet looked more traditional; the nucleus 
seemed to be distinctly round, and the tail streamed out 
to a considerable height above it and slightly to the left 
(away from the sun). During the rest of the month the 
comet rose higher in the sky. It became fainter and faint¬ 
er, and its tail could no longer be detected with certainty 
*Both publications are in the’Ottawa Public Library. 
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