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Excepted
"The RealSky"
which consists on databases on CD-ROM's linked to various Planetarium software, all these programs are able to display
objects of your choice down to inaccessible magnitudes to amateurs scopes (down to magnitude 21).
Like Nova for Windows
to name one famous application, all these software also display
trajectories of artificial satellites, comets,
asteroids and Kuiper objects, in fact they are only limited by your
computer memory and the update or not of your data files.
Your
suspicious object can also be something unusual but already referenced
here and there for some days. Asteroids in particular are probably the
first objects that you can confuse with stars. Fixed in front of the
starry field for dozen of minuts you need an accurate and a high
resolution sky chart to identify it.
To
plan a night observation of asteroïds, check the Hierarchial
Observing Protocal for Asteroids website. To be sure to have identified
a
minor planet, you can also check the coordinates of the suspect object on the
Minor
Planet Checker or Minor
Planet & Comet Ephemeris Service website at Harvard CfA.
Before
going further, check also the recent news on the major associations
websites devoted to these activities. Asteroids, comets and some other moving bodies are
reported to the International
Astronomical Union,
IAU; novae and supernovae also or to the American
Association of Variable Stars Observers,
AAVSO, his foreign representatives and on the website of the International
Supernovae Network, ISN.
At
last you will never discover a new nebula or a remote galaxy because all
them are probably catalogued until some far distance - a few nebulae are hidden or are so hard to
find in stars clusters or dusts clouds that only the more powerful
telescopes have a chance to drive them out. For galaxies the question is
even no
more in the hands of amateurs or even of grounds observatories but rather
an affair reserved to large space telescopes.
Now, with all
these data in hands you can know with certainty the origin of your suspect object.
To
download : PIXY System 2
Freeware
to help you identifying any suspect object
2°. Get
confirmation of your observation
Once your
observation is confirmed "on paper", I mean the object you have
found is NOWHERE plotted, take some time to get confirmation in situ. If you are
member of an astronomy amateur association contact a well equipped and
experienced friend to help you validating your observation.
Sometimes this
process cannot be completed has it depends of the weather factor. So do
not hesitate to contact the responsible of a well-known foreign
association that could confirm your observation under better sky
conditions. Today Internet through its email and video services is the
fastest way to contact someone at antipodes at a near light speed.
If you
want to be the discover of something new you must be the first to confirm the
novelty. Using Internet in less than 6 hours you can get your answer. Use
the slow Earth rotation to foresee the best places in which other amateurs
could confirm your observation. Look first behind you where it is still
night.
Imagine you
observed a suspect object last night in Europe (23h GMT). In place of
sleeping you did a first check and you send your confirmation request to a
US friend in the morning at 4 AM (TZ GMT-5 on US East coast or TZ GMT-8
on the Pacific coast, this is still the night on all USA, excepting Hawaii). Do not call
your Japanese or Australian friend because he could not confirm your
observation before ten hours, when it will be locally night (Japan is
in TZ GMT +9. On the
other side, a Japanese can ask you to confirm his observation).
With chance your
correspondent can look for your suspect object immediately and reply with all details
some hours later, in the first lights of the sunrise in Europe.
Note
that if you are a licensed amateur radio and
use a HF Yagi antenna, the procedure
is still simpler as once you sent your email you can also discuss with
your correspondant on the air. In a few minuts you can get your
confirmation. Knowing that some of them are professional astronomers or
have close contacts in this field, such contacts must be preserved. Many astronomers are indeed
radio amateurs. If you too
are interested in both activities, take a look at my list of "Hams
in the Sky" that I regularly update as much it is appreciated by
the concerned amateurs. And even if the
propagation prevents you to make a QSO with one of them, there is always Echolink that
takes advantage of the Voice-over-IP protocol via the Internet ! But this
is another debate.
The
ideal is to find a correspondent who can access to a public or
professional observatory registered to IAU, like the Observatoire
du Cégep or Mégantic
in Québec, what insure him a quasi professional status and a greater
credibility.
Then
there
are two possibilities. Your observation is not confirmed. In that case you
have to request new observations from your friend in the "dark
side" of the Earth, this time in Japan or Australia. Send him your
email as soon as possible and at the latest early in the afternoon. Ask
him to use the same instrumentation as you (at least the
same magnification) or that he follows the same procedure to record the image
or to process it. Send him by email print screen or any file showing the
place of your suspect object among the other stars in order he had some
points of reference. Complete your email with all necessary explanations
that you will judge useful about your object concerning its magnitude,
possible move, etc.
Some amateurs are
also in relation with professionals astronomers or subscribed to dedicated
maillists. This is a very efficient
method to get an immediate confirmation of a discovery.
If this is not
the case and your object disappeared or is well plotted in some catalogs,
you lost your night but in return you gained experience. Remember that it
exists few amateurs able
to find several new celestial objects each year. To be the first is a
very hard task which requests much rigor and motivation in which professionals are also your concurrents...
(professional usually discover them two months before
amateurs...).
3°. Send your observation
If you have
successfully passed through all these steps, if your experienced friend call you back
and confirmed your suspicions, congratulation, you probably discover
something new !
Without
hesitation it is time now to prepare your email and alert in the CBAT with the certitude they will not tell you to clean up your
eyepiece or worst you did a mistake...
Central
Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
The CBAT webpage
highlighted here has information about how to properly report a possible
discovery, including an online report form and links to check services as
the ones listed above.
Then
it is the discoverer's responsibility to follow the confirmation and
reporting procedures as outlined by the CBAT. Following those procedures
does not guarantee your find will be an actual discovery. But it will
ensure that you and your report are taken seriously.
The
care in that field is preferable than too much impressments. The quickest
way to gain a reputation as a crank is to submit a half-passed report
without taking the time and making the effort to eliminate all other
possibilities than a new object. Worst, this lack of rigor should reduce
to nothing the reputation of the amateurs community, specially the
perseverance of some amateurs trying to make a rigorous work with
professionals. Take care.
Good luck !
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