Mark McCaughrean on Nostr: It was an accident of timing & geometry that led to the team on Calar Alto being ...

It was an accident of timing & geometry that led to the team on Calar Alto being first to see just how big an event Shoemaker-Levy 9’s demise was going to be.

That is, while Fragment A impacted at night-time as seen from Calar Alto, most other observatories with infrared cameras, the best way of seeing the hot impact plumes, were in the US & still in daylight.

But over the following week, other impacts & scars were seen by many other telescopes, including Hubble & Heidi Hammel’s team.