[vsnet-chat 474] Peltier's Comets

[c.scovil@genie.com]

I knew Leslie Peltier, and even visited his home and observed with him using
his 12-inch refractor.  He had extremely good eyesight, and had memorized
hundreds of variable star charts.  In his book "Starlight Nights" he describes
borrowing a 6-inch f/10 refractor from Princeton University for comet
searching.  At first he erected it in a small observatory dome on the family
farm.  It was equatorially mounted, but he contrived a way to make the
equatorial mount rotatable like an alt-azimuth for comet sweeping.  He searched
for three years before finding his first comet - on Nov. 13, 1925.  He used his
variable star observing techniques to estimate its brightness.

   Peltier later mounted the comet seeker telescope in a little rotating house
so that he could sit inside out of the worst of the cold and wind.  He called
it his Merry-go-round observatory.  The telescope was counterweighted so that
it moved up or down very easily.  The pivot point was even with the middle of
his head so he only had to tilt his head a little to follow.  That observatory
was still in use when I visited him in the early 1970s.

In short, I don't believe that any of his comets was discovered while observing
variable stars.

Regards,
Charles Scovil, AAVSO

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