Hello Guide users,

I have a question concerning the position angle (or angel ?) of comets. Up to
now all cases I found were correct. But with C/1999 J2 (Skiff) I encountered a
problem. See the image at my homepage (URL below).

At top of the frame is the galaxy PGC 55322 and the chain of three stars to
the lower left is clearly to identify. The image is rotated by 180 deg (south is
up, east is right) deg.

Guide gives a PA of 166 deg. My image shows a PA of about 10 deg. Does
anybody have an explanation for this behaviour? The distance from earth to
the comet is nearly 6.7 AU.

Clear skies
Bernd


Bernd Brinkmann
Herne, Germany

http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Bernd.A.Brinkmann/index.html