Much better tonight from the bottom of the soup-bowl in downtown West Valley. The ground fog dissipated and the sky was darker than last night. Found the comet immediately using the chart at: http://skyandtelescope.com/mm_images/7575.gif though of course it was still very close to last night's position; it's moving slowly. Better views in the 20x70mm binos than the 9x63mm. The darker sky background improved contrast and the higher magnification increased the angular size markedly. I found the comet to be about as bright as the outer portions of M42, surprisingly. As hard as I try I just can't make it out with the naked eye. Although I didn't detect a tail I thought I could just imagine a slight elongation in a north-south orientation. Debbie is definitely getting the better deal than us Wasatch front dwellers. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
I tried but I still can't see it naked eye from here near SPOC. Bruce was able to do it the other night but he has better eyes than me. Using 11x80 binos tonight I thought I _might_ be seeing something of a very short tail, less than half the width of the coma extending towards Rigel. But to do it I had to use averted vision and bump the binos. Looking forward to seeing the tail sweep through M45 next month. Patrick
participants (2)
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Chuck Hards -
Patrick Wiggins