[BAA Comets] Roy Panther

[Nick James]

Nick Hewitt tells me that Roy Panther (Walgrave, UK) died recently and 
his funeral was last week.

Roy was the discoverer of comet C/1980 Y2 (1980u). The discovery was 
made visually using a 0.20m, f/4 Newtonian at 1850 UT on Christmas day 
1980 when the comet was a 9th magnitude object near M56. The discovery 
was confirmed that evening by Mike Hendrie and George Alcock and it was 
Roy's first success after 601 hours of searching.

Roy was the last living British visual comet discoverer.

Nick James. Director.