A Christmas Comet By Roger W. Sinnott Early on the morning of December 14th, Japanese amateur Tetuo Kudo was searching the skies with his giant 20 x 120 binoculars. While scanning the constellation Hercules, he spotted something new — a fuzzy 9th-magnitude glow moving slowly east-southeast. Follow-up observations by Ken-ichi Kadota (Saitama, Japan) confirmed the object and revealed a short tail about 1/3° in length, pointing away from the Sun. The comet (C/2002 X5) was announced on International Astronomical Union Circulars 8032 and 8033, and has been officially named Comet Kudo-Fujikawa. A preliminary orbit calculated by Brian G. Marsden of...