May 10, 1999

Skywatching leads student to comet discovery

 Sonia Yanez

Creative Communications

Shawn Hermann spends a lot of time looking at the skies as an observer for Lowell Observatory.

During the early morning hours of Feb. 20, 1999, he discovered a faint comet while making routine observations.

At the time of discovery, he was utilizing the Lowell Observatory Near Earth Object Search (LONEOS) telescope. This LONEOS project is managed by Edward Bowell. The LONEOS equipment is used to take large images in the search for asteroids and comets. After noting the comet at 4 a.m., Hermann used the LONEOS computer system to confirm the object visually; at that time, nothing but the tail was visible.

After first sighting the comet, a report was sent by Lowell Observatory to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. They confirmed it as a discovery.

Approximately 12 hours later, an astronomer in the Czech Republic also confirmed the discovery. A third confirmation was sent by James V. Scotti, at the Spacewatch Telescope in Tucson.

After a week of observing the comet, it was confirmed that its orbit crosses that of Jupiter's. The comet, named P-1999D1 (Hermann) after the NAU physics major, has a tail length of 2.2 arcminutes and is 90 million miles from Earth. In comparison, the moon is 30 arcminutes.

The comet extends from 1.65 AU to 9.63 AU from the sun (1 AU=distance from the earth to the sun). 

The comet comes as close as Mars and goes out beyond the orbit of Saturn. The P-1999D1 (Hermann) will be at its maximum brightness next year and will take 13.4 years to make its way around the sun.

More recently, Hermann just made a rare discovery of an Aten asteroid.

Hermann said the largest Aten asteroid ever found is five to six kilometers.

Aten asteroids are those with Venus-crossing orbits; there are approximately 30 in known existence.

 After graduation in May, Hermann, a Phoenix native, will be doing  Image Processing for Raytheon outside of Tucson.