UA Invites Public to View Venus and Comet at Observatory

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Lift your heads and crane your necks to see if you can see Venus and Comet Hoenig at Gallalee Hall on Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. through a refractory telescope. The viewing on The University of Alabama campus is free and open to the public. Gallalee Hall is located at the corner of Hackberry Lane and University Boulevard.

This will be one of the last times of the year Venus will be visible. Venus should look like a shrinking crescent as it moves between the Earth and the Sun, about the size of a half moon.

The Comet Hoenig is a small, newly discovered comet that can be viewed in the northern sky. The end of August is one of the last times the comet will be seen clearly.

Venus is covered in a thick cloud layer, which is part of the dense atmosphere that is responsible for its intense greenhouse effect. The bright clouds, and its proximity to the Sun, make it the brightest planet in our nighttime sky. In fact, Venus can often be seen in daylight.

Sebastian Hoenig of Dossenheim, Germany, discovered comet Hoenig on July 22, 2002, marking the first comet discovered by an amateur telescope in Germany since 1946. The comet, small and almost tailless, is now moving through our northern skies, having passed in front of the bowl of the Little Dipper on Aug. 21.

It has been a good year for telescopic comets. Four bright examples have already appeared in 2002. Comet Hoenig’s orbit will carry it between the Earth and the Sun in late September, after which it will follow a southward trajectory and vanish from our skies in the northern hemisphere.

UA’s physics and astronomy department in the College of Arts and Sciences is hosting the public viewing.