Both Periodic Comet Jager and Periodic Comet Harrington-Abell can be found against the background of the winter Milky Way.  Also up nearly all night long are Comets Linear (1998 M5) and Williams.

   C/1998 X1 (ODAS):  This comet was discovered by a German asteroid survey on December 15.  It remains faint.

   P/1988 VS24 (LINEAR):  Here's another instance of an object being identified as a comet after appearing as an asteroid at discovery.  This comet orbits the sun every nine years, with a perihelion distance of 3.4 AU.

   C/1998 Y1 (LINEAR):  Found on December 22 by the LINEAR program, this comet will remain faint.

   P/1998 Y2 (Li):  The Lick Observatory Supernova Search program imaged this comet in the field of NGC 1041.  It was found by Weidong Li.  The comet orbits the sun every 15 years and remains faint.

Comet hunting notes:  In which month do amateur astronomers visually discover the most comets?  Of the 79 comets found in the past 24 years, 12 were found in July while 10 were found in January.  In last place is both February and April with three finds each.

Ephemerides (Also see Orbital Elements, Page 5.)

More spectroheliograph images

   These shots detail a six-hour progression in the evolution of a solar prominence.  (Photo credit: NASA)

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