Nancy has repeatedly said that amateurs will be able to see the planet in mid-2002. (for example, quoting from the IRC chat on Mar. 2 "(NancyL) This is based on the Zeta prediction that amateurs can see the 12th/PX by mid-2002 ..."). She said it again in her March 23, 2002 IRC chat: "If the inbound planet, Planet X, will soon start a zoom so rapid that it will be visible to amateurs in the night sky, with their equipment, by mid-2002, then what are they to say?"
The following is the text of a recent posting I made to sci.astro:
I know we are all eagerly awaiting the emergence of Nancy's coordinates
from behind the sun. The following is based on catching sight of her coords
about 15 degrees above the horizon while the sun is at nautical sunrise (12
degrees down). I can not give the exact coordinates here because Nancy is withholding
them right now to give Tholen and I less time to modify the NEAT images (futile
since we did it in only a few days last winter). [NB: that was a joke folks.]
When available the coords will be at http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword03m.htm
Meanwhile, it should be between these extremes (note that these are in conventional,
rather than Nancy, units - HMS/DMS):
31-May-02 4:24:14 12:08:16
3-Mar-03 4:17:51 9:57:58
The first folks to get a good look are those in the southern hemisphere. They
should be able to start viewing at the end of June. The approximate location
is just about directly above Aldebaran (30 % higher than the length of the "vee").
Folks in North Freedom, WI will see things a bit differently (in more ways than
one). Start looking in the second week of July. The coordinates will be to the
right of Aldebaran (about 30% farther than the length of the "vee").
I have no idea what to say you should look for as Nancy has given
up trying to express brightness. She has said that her planet should be easily
visible in a small telescope. It should be moving noticably from night to night.
She has now posted coordinates that take us up to early July so we have at least a rough idea of where to look. In fact, she shows her planet hardly moving from her March 31, 2002 prediction in declination, and moving less than 3 arc-minutes in RA.
Here are views for Capetown SA and Madison WI of how the early morning sky should appear when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon and the Nancy position is 15 degrees above the horizon.
I have produced a GIF mosaic from the original Palomar Sky Survey (PSS 1) 103-aE
(red sensitive) photographic plates as made available on the internet at the
Digital Sky Survey (DSS)
site. I have marked a number of stars with their visual apparent magnitudes
as a reference for observers. I have also added lines of right ascension and
declination as a positional reference. Finally, I have marked the March 31,
2002 and the March 3, 2003 predicted positions Nancy has posted. If it is to
be seen, her planet should appear somewhere roughly along a line between these
positions (Nancy has said that it will "hardly move" during the next
year).If you think you have seen Nancy's planet, please let us know here including
as clear a description of how bright it is and where it was seen (that's why
I put in the RA and Dec lines) as you can manage.
Note: If you observe something that you are certain does not appear on the charts
watch it for a few hours. If it is moving then you may have sighted a comet
or an asteroid. You may want to check sites such as Sky
and Telescope to see if you are the first (if so, let folks know).
Click on the figure below to get a much enlarged version (it takes a while to load).
Each sampled region was 60' by 60' (1 degree square). The sampled areas were inverted, brightness adjusted, and superimposed in Photoshop (tm) and the resulting mosaic was annotated, reduced in size, and converted to a GIF file in Paintbrush.
created 05/19/02; last revised 06/09/2002 20:26