New Asteroids to Search on Comet Hunters

New HSC images are ready for review on Comet Hunters.  These observations are from February 2016. These asteroid observations have never before been searched for cometary activity, and this is the first time human eyes have looked at them in such detail. As with new asteroids to review, there are new changes of finding a main-belt comet. Who knows what we’ll find! You might be the first person to spot a new comet.

If any good comet candidates are found in these observations we can ask for telescope time to reimage these specific asteroids the next year to see if they are still active. These telescope proposals are due in the early Fall, so classifying these observations now has much value. We’re also prepping June/July 2016 observations to put on the site ASAP to be able to try and catch asteroids in the ‘act’, at the start of cometary behavior. The classifications from Comet Hunters will enable us to further explore the frequency of the Main-belt comet (MBCs), an important result.

Contribute to the hunt for MBCs today at http://www.comethunters.org