All NOVAC members, guests, and the public are welcome to attend—no RSVP required.  You can attend the meeting virtually via Google Meet. Sign on at 4 pm to connect with fellow astronomers. The meeting starts at 4:30 with club information and general announcements. Program speaker starts at 5:00 pm.

Drawings of comets’ appearances date back at least two thousand years, making the study of comet ‘morphology’ among the oldest endeavors in all of astronomy. While many newer techniques have been invented to study comets, assessment of their morphology continues to hold scientific value today. Dr. Knight will discuss how he uses specialized ‘narrowband’ comet filters on modestly sized telescopes to infer properties of the nuclei of active comets. Such work has occasionally yielded novel insights which are difficult or impossible to constrain using other techniques. He will also discuss how similar work can be conducted using off-the-shelf filters on non-professional telescopes, even from sea level in the Washington D.C. area.