Word: comets
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week a new comet hove into naked-eye view-that is, into the view of people with good eyes. Most observers found it better to look at through 8-power binoculars. A faint feather, the comet is crawling down the western sky, after dusk, toward the constellation of the Eagle (Aquila). It will get brighter this week and next. Toward the middle of January, if it develops as astronomers hope, Cunningham's comet should be the brightest since Halley's great comet...
Harvard's is the only observatory conducting an extensive study of Comet Cunningham, which was discovered here by Leland E. Cunningham this fall. Cunningham himself is organizing the observation program in collaboration with Fletcher Watson, executive secretary of the Observatory...
Following a comet with a telescope is much harder than following a star because while telescopes are geared to follow stars automatically, comets move across the sky rapidly. Consequently it is necessary for the observers to stay by their instruments every minute, for hours at a time, in order to keep the image of the comet in the same position on the photographic plate...
Recent advances in photographic technique have enabled Cunningham and his co-workers for the first time to take photographs of the infra-red end of the spectrum and to measure the absolute brightness of the comet...
Christmas eve will be a banner night for the comet-watchers, because on that night the lights of Fort Devens, which ordinarily light up the sky and cut down the brightness of Comet Cunningham, will...