Calgary - Astronomer Rob Cardinal didn't expect the time he spent installing new software at the University of Calgary's Baker-Nunn telescope earlier this month to change his life.

But days later, his computer was telling him there had been some unusual movement through the telescope - motion that Mr. Cardinal hadn't detected while gazing through it.

But after some sleepless nights peering through cloud cover and finally spying what he'd missed, Mr. Cardinal is now the confirmed finder of C2008 T2, a never-before-identified comet travelling through the solar system.

Or, as it will also be known, Comet Cardinal.

It's the first comet the University of Calgary's space-surveillance program has ever found - and only the second Canadian find since 2001 - and a huge boost for the faculty's hopes of launching a $16-million satellite to find and track space objects.

"It's just fantastic news," Mr. Cardinal said in an interview. "We've found an object that's come here from a very great distance away ... it's serendipity, I guess."

While the behaviour of comets is often unpredictable, it appears that Comet Cardinal is likely on its only trip to this solar system. At its closest point to the Earth, the space object - a "dirty snowball" of ice, billions of years old, left over from the formation of the universe, according to some - could be visible with binoculars or through a telescope in spring 2009.

The discovery was made as part of a program at the University of Calgary's Rothney Astrophysical Observatory to find new asteroids, with the hope not only of detecting those that might come near or even collide with the Earth, but also of finding out more about how the universe was formed.

The university is ramping up those surveillance efforts and will launch a suitcase-sized satellite - the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, or NEOSSat - in 2010, which will include a telescope. At present, its astronomers are in effect practising for when that technology is operational by using the Baker-Nunn telescope, located 35 kilometres southwest of Calgary. It was refurbished by the university in 2003 after it was used by the U.S. to track Russian satellites.

The telescope's unusually wide field of view - ideal for spotting Cold War interlopers - also makes it effective at finding other hard-to-detect space bodies. Unusually, Mr. Cardinal made his discovery when he was searching an area of space out of the elliptical plane of the solar system, where comets aren't usually found.

"It's pretty spectacular to make a new discovery, and it's hard to put into words what it means," said Phil Langill, the observatory's director. "It sends tingles down your spine. ... [Mr. Cardinal] was searching a unique piece of the sky ... and astronomy is all about trying to figure these new things out."

For Mr. Cardinal, a member of the Siksika Nation east of Calgary, he hopes to use his discovery as a means of encouraging aboriginal children to look at science as a potential career.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to give something back," he said.