[BAA Comets] Amateur discovery of C/2018 V1 (Machholz-Fujikawa-Iwamoto)

[Nick James]

Don Machholz discovered this comet visually on the morning of November 
7th low in the Californian pre-dawn sky. Seven hours later Shigehisa 
Fujikawa and Masayuki Iwamoto each detected it as it rose from their 
observing sites in Japan. Unusually a comet had been discovered by three 
amateurs rather than the automated surveys.

The attached plot based on the latest orbit and magnitude parameters 
shows that this comet did everything it could to avoid the surveys. The 
magnitude parameters are still very uncertain but it is likely that the 
comet brightened rapidly during September and October when it was within 
30 degrees of the Sun. Back last Spring when it was at a reasonable 
elongation it would have been far too faint to discover. It became 
available for discovery early in November as it brightened rapidly in 
the pre-dawn sky.

The comet is heading towards perihelion on December 3rd and it its gas 
and dust tails are shown particularly well in this timelapse from 
Michael Jaeger:

http://www.britastro.org/cometobs/2018v1/2018v1_20181118_mjaeger.gif

With the Moon getting in the way along with poor weather and decreasing 
elongation it is unlikely we'll get any more good views of it from the UK.

It was good to have a comet with an old-fashioned name even though it 
was only fleetingly visible in the dawn sky and it will be interesting 
to see whether it will survive perihelion. Please keep observing it if 
you can.

Nick.
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