I tried to again recover Comet Boethin last night predicted to be magnitude 9 by Seiichi Yoshida. A twenty three minute exposure failed to reveal what should have been a relatively bright comet. The brightest star in the field is SAO163277 at magnitude 8.6. It has been theorized that Boethin’s orbit may have been perturbed and no longer is along its predicted path. To verify this, I blinked two images taken 23 minutes apart in an attempt to detect Boethin within a quarter degree radius from its predicted location but was still unable to detect it. I suspect that the only comet to have ever been discovered by a Filipino has disintegrated and vanished forever.
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