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For everyone out there, a bit of astronomical history. Some people believe that astronomy wasn`t fun. I`ve delved back and looked at several topics that astronomers have reported over the last couple of centuries and have always been fascinated by the stories of Vulcan...
The most famous of these astronomers was Le Verrier, of Uranus fame, working on information provided by Lescarbault, he computed an orbit for an intra-mercurial planet and named it Vulcan.
In the latter part of the 19th century several sightings and transits of the so called planet were documented. Two astronomers in particular Prof. Watson and Dr Swift at differing locations during the 29th July 1878 eclipse reported intra-mercurial objects, both were proven observers and gave much credability to the subject, though even in their day they had their detractors. Their observations were never confirmed. What these people observed is open to interpretation.
Raking together all the information I can on the subject, I propose that an asteriod is a likely candidate, though there could be several. The object is small and cannot be above 320 km and due to it`s proximity to the Sun, there could only be a few favourable times to observe it. It`s maximum elongation would be a mere 6 to 7 Deg and have an apparent mag +6 or dimmer.
With the up and coming eclipse of the 29th March 2006, I`ll make a prediction that the object would be at either two coordinates
00Hrs 55-56` +05Deg 03-16` or 01Hrs 02-03` +05Deg 34-50`
The nearest brightest star would be 73 Psc at 37` west
I would be interested to hear from any one who is likely to go to the eclipse in Turkey and see if they`ll have a quick look Also it`s good fun .
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