Re: Comet Boattini (Obs. Notes)

On Jul 12, 7:06 am, mov...@xxxxxxxxx (Marty) wrote:

Thanks for that Bill!  An UnGODly hour in the morning though...  I'd do
best staying up til then than trying to regain consciousness and start
my heart with the electrodes that early...

Yeah, it can be tough. I hadn't planned on getting up at that time,
but I did check out the comet's location on the previous day and knew
that 3:30am would be an ideal time for me to give it a try. So when I
just happened to wake up at 3:22am how could I resist? Of course, it
helped greatly to be able to make the observation from my porch -- a
dark sky, a low enough eastern horizon, no travel time (no need to
burn expensive fuel!), no telescope set-up necessary -- just grab a
pair of binoculars and step outside.

I had considered pulling an all-nighter, but that also can be pretty
rough on the body. It looks like the next two nights *might* be good
for more observing. Now that I know more precisely the comet's
position relative to my local horizon features, etc. I could (if I
really wanted ;-) prepare something larger to view the comet with.

On the other hand, Comet Boattini (so far) appears to present nothing
special for most people. It's just another featureless cometary
fuzzball -- at least in hand-held binoculars. But the word is now
out! This comet should now be accessible to most inhabitants of the
northern hemisphere as long as one has a clear dark sky, a low enough
eastern horizon, and of course, the insane determination to be out and
about in the wee hours of the morning.

Bill Greer
To sketch is to see.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Comet McNaught Obs.
    ... Every few minutes I went out and scanned the eastern horizon ... for Comet NcNaught. ... Finally, just before 7am, in bright twilight, the ... After catching the comet in the small binoculars I switched to a pair ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Comet Holmes
    ... its easy to see with the naked eye, unusual to look straight down a comet ... if you look down towards the eastern horizon is the yellowish bright stat ... I've created a page of images of the comet ...
    (uk.sci.weather)