No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky. I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece. It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific.
Correction: Direction is NNW.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> Date: 7/15/20 6:35 AM (GMT-07:00) To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: NEOWISE No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky.I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece.It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific.
I saw it tonight when I was near the Great Salt Lake. It was rather dim and I failed to get a photo of it. I was using an ancient 8” Celestron (which no longer pretends to track) that I thought would act like a big telephoto lens. But it didn’t work for several reasons. Next time I’ll use a plain old telephoto and I should get something better than star trails. Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 15, 2020, at 5:14 PM, chuck.hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Correction: Direction is NNW.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> Date: 7/15/20 6:35 AM (GMT-07:00) To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: NEOWISE No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky.I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece.It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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I tried seeing last night, it would have been above my view of the Rockies around 3am. But the Denver Nebula was way brighter than I thought it’d be, and the area was completely washed out. Dan -- Daniel Holmes, danielh@holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin
On Jul 16, 2020, at 1:38 AM, Joe Bauman via Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
I saw it tonight when I was near the Great Salt Lake. It was rather dim and I failed to get a photo of it. I was using an ancient 8” Celestron (which no longer pretends to track) that I thought would act like a big telephoto lens. But it didn’t work for several reasons. Next time I’ll use a plain old telephoto and I should get something better than star trails.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 15, 2020, at 5:14 PM, chuck.hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Correction: Direction is NNW.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> Date: 7/15/20 6:35 AM (GMT-07:00) To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: NEOWISE No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky.I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece.It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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I live in Heber and have gone out the last three nights and have been able to observe it and take pictures. I live at the north end of town on the west side and if I look towards Deer Valley Ski Resort and Bald Mtn it has been coming down almost the same place each night but it has been starting out higher in the sky each night allowing for longer viewing and better seeing conditions as it is staying up longer allowing it to get darker, lol but you all understand that one. I have been using my Celestron SkyMaster Pro 20x80 binos and it's pretty impressive in those with a listed FOV of 3.2 degrees. As someone else posted it is NNW and looking at a map it's around 20 plus degrees west of north. It has been basically lining up with the two stars on the bottom of the Big Dipper, Phecda and Merak and if you follow those down towards the horizon Neowise is in that general direction or that is how I have been getting others to find it with their own two eyes. We are talking about going out to Simpson Springs in Skull Valley as it is up a little bit over the valley floor and Dugway but the views in that direction are as far as the horizon and should be really good just have to figure out if alone or have my friend follow in his car. Mike Taylor On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 8:23 AM Daniel Holmes <danielh@holmesonics.com> wrote:
I tried seeing last night, it would have been above my view of the Rockies around 3am. But the Denver Nebula was way brighter than I thought it’d be, and the area was completely washed out.
Dan -- Daniel Holmes, danielh@holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin
On Jul 16, 2020, at 1:38 AM, Joe Bauman via Utah-Astronomy < utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:
I saw it tonight when I was near the Great Salt Lake. It was rather dim and I failed to get a photo of it. I was using an ancient 8” Celestron (which no longer pretends to track) that I thought would act like a big telephoto lens. But it didn’t work for several reasons. Next time I’ll use a plain old telephoto and I should get something better than star trails.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 15, 2020, at 5:14 PM, chuck.hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Correction: Direction is NNW.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: Chuck Hards < chuck.hards@gmail.com> Date: 7/15/20 6:35 AM (GMT-07:00) To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: NEOWISE No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky.I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece.It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
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-- Such a long long time to be gone, such a short time to be there.
Should be easy tonight. But it will be hot so I am taking plenty of water. On Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:06 AM Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
No need to travel out of town, I spotted the comet immediately from my backyard in West Valley last night. Brighter than expected! This little comet reminds of Ikeya-Zhang, around 2002, wasn't it? Maybe a bit bigger and brighter though Ikeya-Zhang was in a darker sky.
I used my old Sans & Streiffe 7x35mm binocular and a Vixen Mini-60s spotting scope at various low magnifications. Best views were with a Takahashi 25mm ortho and home-made 23mm wide-angle Plossl eyepiece.
It's very low in the WNW. Start looking right after sundown and it will pop into view as soon as the sky darkens sufficiently, only about ten or fifteen degrees in elevation. I was fortunate that the comet just happened to lie in a place between the trees, from my yard, but I wouldn't have to travel more than a block or two to find a good viewing location if I couldn't use the yard. You just need a low western horizon. The east benches should be terrific. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy
Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
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participants (6)
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Chuck Hards -
chuck.hards
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Daniel Holmes -
Debbie Whitaker -
Joe Bauman -
Robert Taylor