PONS-WINNECKE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1921, Page 1

PONS-WINNECKE

COMET HE-APPEARS. LONDON, April 15. Pons-Winnooke, lat e for its appointment and exasperatingly faint, has been ■found. It is about 12,000,000 miles away, and is hurrying towards us at a spfced of about 20 miles a second. In June it will only be a few million miles away, according to Dr A. C. D. Crommelin, the astronomer of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Pons-Winnicke, a comet which visits us every 5J years, has been “missing” for some weeks, and it was sighted on Sunday by Professor Banard, of Yerkes Observatory, 75 miles from Chicago. Photgraphs were taken at Greenwich on Tuesday night, and after threo exposures of the great 30in. reflector! ons Winnecke could be seen on the plates, but only very faintly. Dr Crommelin, who has been watching for it, is almost disgusted with its meagre appearance, for its size is said to bo a little less than that of the earth. “Tt is very doubtful if it will be possible to see it with the naked eye, even at perihelion (the point of tin,’ orbit of the comet nearest the sun)” be added. “It should he looked for in the north-eastern sky and is. at the highest point early in the morning. Tts feebleness may be due to it's losing some of its gaseous envelope, hut anyhow there may bo some meteors about the middle of .Tune,”

SWEN TN NEW ZEALAND. WET/LINGTON, This Day. This morning at 3.30, tho Pons-Win-necke comet was observed at Hector

Observatory, by A- C. Gifford who subsequently reported the fact to the Government Astronomer. The comet was at that time near and on the western side of star XI Pegasus; moving rapidly south and east and will to-night be on the east side of the star. This is the first view of the Comet obtained in New Zealand.