Malcolm Hartley

Malcolm Hartley is an English-born astronomer currently based in the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. He's best known for his discovery and co-discovery of 8 comets in the 1980s, among them 79P/du Toit-Hartley, 80P/Peters–Hartley, 100P/Hartley 1, 103P/Hartley 2, 110P/Hartley 3, and C/1984 W2 (Hartley).[1] Unfortunately for Hartley, in 2002, "the Anglo-Australian Observatory retrofitted its Schmidt to perform multi-object spectroscopy, essentially halting all astrophotography with the telescope and ending any future possibility for comet discovery". (see ref 1)

Hartley visited the NASA JPL facility in Pasadena, CA, in November 2010 to witness the EPOXI mission flyby of comet 103P/Hartley 2 on 4 November 2010. Media articles and photos are available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-368. This includes a photograph of Malcolm Hartley.

The asteroid 4768 Hartley (1988 PH1) was named in his honour, being deputy astronomer of the U.K. Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring, with which this minor planet was discovered.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Talcott, Richard. "Get ready for a naked-eye comet". Astronomy.
  2. ↑ Lutz D. Schmadel: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, 5th edition, Springer-Verlag, p. 411. ISBN 3-540-00238-3.

External links


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