Blazing a Ghostly Trail

Peter Grego began his astronomical writing career by producing around 50 articles on astronomy and observing for the Birmingham (UK) Astronomical Society Journal (1982-1991). Through the years he has had dozens of articles appear in various publications, including Popular Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Now, Sky at Night magazine, Amateur Astronomy and Space Sciences, Fortean Times, Selenology, Gnomon, The Lunar Observer, The New Moon, The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Window on the Universe CD-ROMs, and Hoshinavi. He has contributed to several books by Ian Ridpath, Brian Jones and Robin Scagell, and revised the lunar material for both the latest edition of Norton’s Star Atlas and for the two latest editions of Philip’s Universal Atlas.He currently edits the following astronomy publications: Luna, journal of the SPA Lunar Section (since 1984); The SPA News Circulars (since 2000); Popular Astronomy magazine (since 2000); The New Moon, journal of the BAA Lunar Section; and the BAA Lunar Section Circulars and the Bulletin of the Society for the History of Astronomy.Peter also finds time to write and illustrate the monthly “MoonWatch” page for Astronomy Now magazine (since 1997) and is the astronomical observing expert and observing Q&A writer for Sky at Night magazine. He has given many talks to astronomical societies around the UK and has been featured on a number of radio and television broadcasts.Finally, Grego is the author of numerous astronomy books, including Collision: Earth! (Cassell, 1998), Moon Observer’s Guide (Philips/Firefly, 2004), The Moon and How to Observe It (Springer, 2005), Need to Know? Stargazing (Collins, 2005), Need to Know? Universe (Collins, 2006), Solar System Observer’s Guide (Philips/Firefly, 2005), Exploring the Earth/Exploring the Moon/ Discovering theSolar System/ Voyage Through Space/ Discovering the Universe (five books in the QED Space Guides series, 2007), Venus and Mercury and How to Observe Them (Springer, 2008), The Great Big Book of Space (QED 2010), Galileo and 400 Years of Telescopic Astronomy (Springer, 2010), and Mars and How to Observe It (Springer, 2012).

• Introduction: Setting the scene for C/2012 S1 (ISON) and incoming comets.- What is a comet and where do they come from? (Primordial leftovers, Oort Cloud, etc).- Portents of change and doom (historical perspectives on comets, myths and superstitions, end of world predictions, hyperbole).- Great comets (including Halley’s Comet, Ikeya-Seki, IRAS-Araki-Alcock, Hyakutake, Hale-Bopp, McNaught, etc).- Comets up close observations by space probes (VeGa, Giotto, ICE, Deep Impact, etc).- C/2012 S1 and selected bright comets of the future (discovery, magnitude predictions, paths through Solar System).

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