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Comet Linear (1998 M5) moves past the North Celestial Pole while Comet Williams fades in our evening sky. Periodic Comets Jager and Harrington-Abell remain near each other in our winter Milky Way.
C/1998 A1 (Tilbrook): Justin Tilbrook of Australia visually discovered this comet on January 12. He was using an 8-inch reflector at 70x to find the tenth magnitude object. Justin was intentionally looking for comets when he found this, his second comet. His first comet find, 18 months ago, was accidental; he was checking out variable stars at the time. Comet Tilbrook is moving away from both the earth and sun, and dimming. During late December, while still undiscovered, it passed 30 million
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miles from us. I swept over it on December 9, when I picked up galaxy NGC 6217 but missed the equally faint comet, a couple of degrees away. Then on January 3, shortly after moonrise, I swept over it when it was near Jupiter in the evening sky. Perhaps it brightened rapidly shortly before discovery.
COMET HUNTING NOTES: Five of the last seven visual discoveries (covering 2.5 years) have been made by Southern Hemisphere observers, all from Australia. All five comets were found south of the celestial equator. Two were accidental finds (by Williams and Tilbrook), with Tilbrook finding one more and Tabur finding two.
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