Report from Montreal. January 13th,2015.

[RodexMtl]

Happy New Year!

Finally the inclement winter weather gave me 1 hour to go out at -20 C and see, while frosting myself, the comet Lovejoy!

Location: LaSalle, QC. Canada 45.4286° N, 73.6634° W

Date: 01/13/2015 from 19h26  to 20h35 (GMT-5)

Equipment: Bushnell Legacy 10x50.

Mount: Rokinon M67 Monopod with Tefoto T3 metal ball head (with 1/4"-to- 3/8" adapter) and an Alpen aluminium tripod adapter)

Book and Guides: Binocular Highlights. Gary Seronik

Softwares used:Sky Portal (celestron), Photoshop

Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude: 3 (using star count field method, in Gemini)

Weather conditions:

  T= -19 degrees celsius.

   P=1040.9mb.

   Humidity: 68%

   Cloud Cover: Clear

   Transparency: Above average

   Seeing: 3/5

   Darkness: 5/6

Constellations:

• Taurus

COMETS

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy was located near S Tauri, in the same FOV. Again, impossible in these conditions to see any tail or coma, but its color, pale green, was clearly different to the stars in the background. It was a joy to see it, using the binoculars and the monopod. The freezing temperature didn`t allow me to continue more than an hour, but I could make a sketch (my first one)  of the comet!

Still the Naked Eye Limited Magnitud was really bad (3). I guess that it was still early in the evening, many city lights on, and a lot of snow reflecting the light from the streets.

At first, I was going to make sketches of The Hyades and the Pleiades also, but, no....-19 C its too much

[MiguelMJr]

Very nice drawing and a good report. Is that chalk on black paper?

It's a wonder that you could make such a nice circle in -20 temperatures, I can't even make one that nice at room temperature.

Miguel

[RodexMtl]

HI Miguel!

Thank you for your words!

It's white paper and pencil (2H and HB). I prepare some circles ready before going out on a couple of papers on a table, just ready to be filled with what I'll sketch. Outside, I just fill the circles with the sketch. Once the sketch is ready, I scan It and, using photochop, invert the colors.

But still....it's horrible at -20!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great report and sketch. Lovejoy is putting on quite a show.

[RodexMtl]

Well....a lot of bad weather....while I can not go outside and make observations I was rechecking this astrosketching.... It seems that the star with higher magnitude I saw is HIP 16738 , a 8.25 magnitude star!!!!! Living in a white One of light pollution, with NALM of just 3, was a nice surprise to see an 8.25 magnitude star thorough the bins! More than 320 light years away!

[RodexMtl]

Sorry, white zone in the light pollution map, I mean