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8 March 2014 sky & telescope

Letters

Unclassifi able Comets

Editor’s Note: Comet ISON played it close to

the vest right through its perihelion passage

on November 28th. As part of Joe Rao’s arti-

cle “How Often Do Bright Comets Appear?”

(November issue, page 30), we asked readers

which of Rao’s three categories they thought

ISON would fall into. The poll results were:

• Showstopper: Even a casual observer will
  stop and say, “Wow, look at that!” — 15.0%


• Showpiece: It will attract widespread
  attention or admiration — 41.1%


• Garden variety: It’ll look nice through a
  telescope, but it wouldn’t be considered a
  “great comet” — 43.9%
  We now know that a slight plurality had
  it right: although Comet ISON was a pretty
  sight with optical aid, it was certainly no
  showstopper or showpiece. But those who
  voted “showpiece” were correct in one respect:
  ISON certainly attracted a lot of attention.

Kudos for Joe Rao’s article! I agree that

attempting to determine whether a comet

is “great” is bound to be subjective. I was

pleased to see that Comet Holmes got a

mention, although it didn’t actually make

Rao’s list of bright comets. I remember

it well — easily visible in Perseus from

outside my apartment in urban Oakland,

California. It was certainly unusual, with

its starlike nucleus and large, fuzzy, and

round coma. Its visibility makes me won-

der if the 2.5-magnitude rating is a wee bit

too conservative.

I had the good luck of seeing Comet

Hyakutake in the heavily light-polluted

skies of Paris, followed the next year by

Hale-Bopp’s show in the equally light-pol-

luted skies of Los Angeles. Having seen

those, I know that Comet Holmes was no

“great” comet, although I would argue

that it was more than a garden variety.

How about a “What-the-Heck” comet? It

certainly deserves more fanfare than that

no-show Comet PanSTARRS!

Jeff Rabb

Concord, California

I enjoyed Rao’s article about bright comets

and was interested to see that Comet

Ikeya-Seki was included as a “showstop-

per.” My father, George Wilmot, was a

chemist by profession but was also an

amateur astronomer who sparked my

lifelong interest in the sky. On Halloween

morning in 1965, he took several photos

of Ikeya-Seki using his Kodak Twin-lens

Refl ex camera. One was published on the

front page of a local newspaper. Personally

I think that his photo is more impressive

than the one you have in the article, but

of course, I may be biased. I just wish he

would have woken me up that morning to

see it!

Greg Wilmot

Laurel, Maryland

Illustrating the Heavens

I enjoyed reading about H. A. Rey’s The

Stars: A New Way to See Them (October

issue, page 72). When I fi rst started this

great hobby I, like many others, had dif-

fi culty reconciling star charts with the

real night sky. Success in learning the sky

always eluded me — that is, until I found

Write to Letters to the Editor, Sky & Telescope,

90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140-3264,

or send e-mail to [email protected].

Please limit your comments to 250 words.

Amateur astronomer George Wilmot captured this shot of Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965.

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