Originally from ticket #4876.

Last Christmas - or around then - there was a certain amount of
publicity about Comet Lovejoy. This appeared in the SE about 4 am several
days in a row and its appearance was described as like the beam of a
searchlight pointed more or less straight up into the sky. Its brightness
was rated at magnitude 10, which does not sound very bright to me, but
several members of the Astronomical Society of Victoria saw it and reported
that it was quite plain to the naked eye and more so through an ordinary
pair of binoculars. Modest telescopes were said to even reveal a little
detail within the comet's head.

I was not able to see it from my home partly because of cloudy conditions
and, on the days when there was reasonable viewing, because I simply was
not awake at 4 am. However, I did activate Starry Night in the hope of
finding out just where and when it should appear and what its appearance
would be. However, though I updated files immediately before trying this
Starry Night did not seem to know this comet - the <Find> facility
returned zero results.

It still doesn't, though the comet has long since ceased to be visible.

I know that Starry Night can return zero results if the name of the object
is not exactly what Starry Noght calls it. E.g. I have had a zero result
from the <Find> facility in response to "Scorpio" which is the name for
that constellation most familiar to me. Perhaps Scorpius is strictly
correct and the other not strictly correct. Perhaps "Comet Lovejoy" is not
strictly correct.

So if this comet is known to Starry Night by what name is it known?

Kendrick

--
regards
Kendrick Pereira