The news items in this page are ordered chronologically: most recently obtained item first.
To make up this page, I 'borrowed' material from several persons. I copied a lot from the Chiron Perihelion Campaign, and added the observations passed directly to me. A sincere word of thanks is justified here. Thank you: Anne Raugh, Denis Bergeron, Alan Hale, Timo Karhula and Charles Morris.
June-October 1995
May 1995
April 1995
No news was obtained, except for an image by Denis Bergeron (Quebec, Canada). See also the images page.
Some time was spent to the discovery of asteroid 1995 FC21.
A lot of time was (and still is) devoted to the study of the rotation period of Chiron.
In his Comet Home page, Charles S. Morris (California, USA) mentions the following observations by Alan Hale (New Mexico, USA):
Alan Hale got the following observations using a 41cm reflector: April 24.24 UT: m1=15.2 April 25.21 UT: m1=15.2
The Chiron Perihelion Campaign pages contain in the reports-section observations made by Dave Kenyon (California, USA):
Chiron was imaged on 4/25/95 at 10pm PDT. Site: Kenyon Astrophysical Observatory CA. 5280 feet elevation, seeing was modest (high thin clouds) The object was imaged by stacking 7 (1 minute) exposures using an ST-7 with 2x binning and IR filter. Telescope was 8" f4.5. 14 mag galaxies were difficult, but Chiron was pulled out with image processing. No mag estimate was made. The object was not visual in a 17.5" f4.5 telescope due to reduced seeing.
The Chiron Perihelion Campaign pages contain in the reports-section observations made by Denis Bergeron (Quebec, Canada):
I have taken a lot of pictures of CHIRON with my CCD SBIG ST-6 whithout any filter at prime focus (F6) of my 10 inches Meade LX-200. All my pictures are exposed 5 minutes. After, I add up the pictures together with my software. I still haven't found any coma. The sum of the images of 5 minutes centered on CHIRON doesn't show me any evidence of the presence of coma.
The Chiron Perihelion Campaign pages contain in the reports-section observations made by Dave Kenyon (California, USA):
I have imaged Chiron twice: 3/30/95 ~11pm PST 2/24/95 ~00:30am PST With an 8" f4.5 equipped with an ST-7. Images were OK, but dim
The Chiron Perihelion Campaign pages contain in the reports-section observations made by Dave Kenyon (California, USA):
Site Kenyon Astrophysical Observastory Located in Northern CA, 5280 feet el. 2/26/95 at 00:26 PST excellent seeing some wind. Chiron was detected with 8" f4.5 scope equipped with an ST-7 2x binned through an IR filter. 15.3 mag. with a 5min exposure. Verified with a Megastar 15 mag finder. 14mag galaxies were easy. Could not visual in a 17.5" scope. 3/30/95 at 22:40 PST modest seeing with very thin high clouds. Chiron was detected with 8" f4.5 scope equipped with an ST-7 through an IR filter. 15.1 mag. with 2 stacked 20 min exposures. Verified with a Megastar 15 mag finder. 14 mag galaxies were difficult due to seeing. Could not visual in a 17.5" scope.
Charles S. Morris (California, USA) reported the following observations by Alan Hale (New Mexico, USA):
January 29.29 15.2 February 5.34 15.2 March 5.27 15.0 April 1.37 15.1 All observations were with 41 cm reflector. With the exception of the first two observations of Chiron, all the above are from Cloudcroft; the January 29 observation was from near Orogrande (the site I took you to) and the February 5 observation was from near Chaparral, NM (a site about 1/3 as far from El Paso as the Orogrande site, and which I discovered after you visit out.) Chiron was completely stellar during all observations.
Charles S. Morris (California, USA) mentions in his Comet Home page an observation with the help of the TIE 60cm reflector + ST-6 CCD:
m1~15.5.
This observation led to images which are contained in the Chiron images page.
Timo Karhula (Vasteras, Sweden) adds to his message of 1995 April 4 the following:
... It was a challenge to detect and especially identify [Chiron]. Since it was stationary that night, no movement could be seen for a couple of nights. I made a sketch of the field of view for later confirmation. Confirmation came on Jan 28 when I could use the Murdoch University's 45 cm Dobson telescope again. The weather conditions were again very good (as usual in W.A.!) and I could for example see the Horsehead-, Rosetta nebula (without filters), six stars in Trapezium etc for the first time :-). Stars down to 15.9 mag was easily seen near Chirons area but not my suspected star three weeks before. Thus I feel confident about my observation of the distant comet/asteroid. It was of mag 15.7 according to the ephemeris on Jan 8.
Timo Karhula (Vasteras, Sweden) explains that he was in Australia, he, Maurice Leonard Clark and Darren Simpson observed Chiron 199 Jan 8.80 (UT). He writes:
We were using Murdoch Universitys 44.5 cm f/4.5 telescope from a dark place near Perth in Western Australia. Naked eye limiting magnitude was ~6.5. We used the Hubble Guide Star Atlas showing stars down to 16 mag and we saw several stars fainter than 16 mag (~16.5 mag). The suspected 'star' which we believed was Chiron was not there three weeks later. I didn't make an accurate estimate of its brightness but it was between 15.5-16.0 mag. The magnification used was 222x (9 mm ocular). Chiron was stellar. Chiron was about to start its retrograde motion in eastern Leo.
Please, contact me if you have some interesting news items about Chiron. That is an ultimate chance to see your name mentioned on this page!
URL of this page is: [http://www.vub.ac.be/STER/www.astro/chinews.htm]
Last modified: 1995 October 03. This page is ©1995.