A comet hunter is an astronaut who specializes in detecting comets.
If a comet is identified first, the explorer gets the privilege to give his name to the comet. For example, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (1993e) was discovered jointly by Eugene Shoemaker, his wife Carolyn and David Levy. This comet came into the news because he broke into pieces that hit the planet Jupiter between July 16 and 22, 1994.
Exceptionally, Halley's comet was not discovered by Edmond Halley. Halley suggested that in a number of comet appearances at intervals of 76 years, the same comet was always the same, and predicted his return.
Comet hunters use special telescopes that make a big picture of a large number of hours within a few hours or days. Because a comet moves relative to the fixed stars in the background, a comet will skip a piece of a series of photos. Once there are enough observations, the path of the comet can be calculated.
One of the first systematic comet hunters was Charles Messier, in order to facilitate identification of new comets, he placed a catalog of all "comet-like" (mainly nebulae and gas clouds) objects in the sky between 1758 and 1782. For example, the Andromedevel is still known as M31, the 31st object from Messier's list. Other meanings
The Messerschmitt Me 163 was the first operational rocket launcher that was referred to as the "Komet".
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