observers notebook By Rebecca A.

Johnson

The New Wilson Comet Award

an endowed cash prize for amateur comet discoverers (August issue, page 27).
Edgar Wilson, a businessman from Lexington, Kentucky, died in 1976. His lifelong interest in astronomy and desire to
promote the hobby led him to bequeath
the prize in his will. Other stipulations in
the will delayed establishing the award
until recently. Administered by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
(CBAT), the prize of as much as $20,000
annually will be divided equally among
all comet-finders in each year beginning
June 11th, 0h UT.
Theres plenty of time left for others to
earn a share of this years
award, which will be presented in July 1999. Only
Monthly Sunspot Numbers
amateur astronomers, or
140
professionals acting in an
120
amateur capacity at the
100
80
time of discovery, can
60
claim the prize. Discover40
ies must be made with
20
amateur equipment and
0
can be visual, photographJun
Aug
Oct
Dec '97 Feb 98
Apr
ic, or electronic. DiscoverPierre Cugnon of the Sunspot Index Data Center supplied
ies made using materials
these provisional sunspot numbers. The range of minimum and
prepared by others, such as
maximum daily numbers (vertical lines) and monthly means
(connected points) are shown for the nine most recent months.
sky surveys, do not qualify.
There are also three months of predictions. Daily numbers are
Any comet discoverer
available at http://www.oma.be/KSB-ORB/SIDC/index.html.
acting alone, whose name

n amateur comet hunter in Australia is the first person to qualify

for the newly established Edgar
Wilson Award. On August 11th the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced that Peter Williams of Heathcote, New South Wales, had discovered a
13th-magnitude comet the night before.
Williams used a 0.30-meter reflector for
the visual discovery. At the time, Comet
C/1998 P1 was in the southern constellation Triangulum Australe near the border of Circinus.
Last June the IAU announced the establishment of the Edgar Wilson Award,

EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY

This two-minute exposure of Comet Williams

was taken August 11th with the 1.54-meter
Danish Telescope at the European Southern
Observatory at La Silla, Chile. A faint plasma
tail is visible on the lower-left (south-southeast) side of the coma and extends out of the
13-arcminute-wide field.

is given to a comet, is eligible for one

share of the total prize money for that
year. A comet-discovery team would receive only one share. Of course, new
comet finds must be reported to CBAT in
the normal manner to make their discoverers eligible for the prize. Comet-reporting procedures are posted on the Internet at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/
CometDiscovery.html. Complete rules for
the Wilson Award can be found at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/special/
EdgarWilson.html.
Rebecca A. Johnson served as Sky & Telescopes 1998 summer intern.

Solar Activity
Jeffrey D. Law photographed this colorful aurora on the morning of last July 31st at Pentwater, Michigan. Sightings of auroral displays
are likely to become more common as the
Suns activity continues to increase. Between
August 17th and 19th four X-ray flares occurred within a sunspot group rounding the
Suns eastern limb. By the last week of August,
as the group became better placed on the face
of the Sun, it was visible to the naked eye.

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope November 1998

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