My grandfather told me stories about Halley's 1910 apparition. Said there were door-to-door salesmen offering potions to protect against the poison in the comet's tail (which Earth passed through partially). Cyanide had been detected spectroscopically, and though it was at a very small concentration, it was hyped by the media, and scam artists took advantage of that. -Dan Heim On 5/16/2013 12:13 PM, AJ Crayon wrote: > One night during a public viewing of Comet Halley, from the Pinal County > fair grounds, I was busy speaking with the last person to view through my > scope and I didn't notice the next person to step up and start looking. > While I continued to discuss the comet for a while, the gentleman that was > looking through the scope interrupts us and says, "It's not as good as last > time" and walks off before I could talk to him. Felt like I really missed > an opportunity to learn something from long ago. I did note he had a > walking cane. > -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.