News & Blogs

Once again Richard Miles (Director of the BAA, asteroids and comets section) has been following up interesting activity on the periodic comet, Comet 29P/ Schwassmann-Wachmann. His report is below.

From our 2010 Zeitgeist blog you may have noticed some information about the relability and use of Faulkes Telescope North and South during 2010. Here is a more detailed break down of how we did on successful nights of observing, technical downtime, weather and more. 

On December 23, 2010, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope’s CEO Wayne Rosing and a crew of three movers from Bucks Movers and Transport Statewide arrived at LCOGT’s Goleta warehouse to see if LCOGT’s 1-meter telescope enclosures could be built in a fast and repeatable manner.

Here are the two images hot off the press. The observations of a strange asteroid were taken about 58 hr apart. It was reported that Steve Larson of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, had imaged the asteroid (596) Scheila on December 11.44-11.47 UT with the 0.68-m Schmidt telescope at Catalina and found it to be in apparent outburst with a comet-like appearance.