Comet again

[The Warthog]

I took the scope out early today, and went out to it about 10:00, having glanced out earlier and finding about 70% cloud cover. About ten, the sky was clear, and about as transparent as it gets, here. I pointed the scope up towards Perseus, and found the comet in the 7x50 finder almost immediately. As I'd mostly gone out to check on the sky, I didn't have my ep kit with me, so I wasn't prepared to look through the scope. (I'd been figuring I'd just put the scope away, actually, as I expected cloud.) Besides, it was getting close to zero, and I was wearing a dress shirt, and a pair of chinos. And I was making bread, which takes a bit of your time. There's a loaf baking even as I type.

Went out again about eleven, and it took me a while to find the comet in the scope, as I have just refixed the finder on the scope, and hadn't sighted it in. I did find the comet after a while using the 24mm ep at 32x, then I popped in the 7.5mm, and the comet filled the centre portion of the field. I should have to guess its size at about half a degree, but when I go back out I'll take a more accurate measure. I couldn't decide whether there was or was not a tenuous tail to the south of it. The thing looked three-dimensional in the 24mm ep, and just huge in the 7.5. The nucleus is not well defined, but there is a large bright area in the centre. I can see it naked eye, even with my eyes, and it is quite striking in the finderscope.

I'm going to reclaim that loaf, and then go and take another look. Had Mrs. Warthog out in her pyjamas and overcoat to look at it, but she was seriously underwhelmed. She wouldn't even believe I had it in focus. She finally told me "This is ridiculous," and went off to bed.

OK, I'm back. I make it about 0.3 degrees, or about 20 arcminutes, across. Definitely a wowser. I was thinking, as I looked at this comet with my own little eyes, that our ancestors had no way of knowing how far away this stuff is. The comet, at about 150,000,000 km, looks at the same distance as Mirfak, lightyears away. How could anyone tell?

Looked briefly at Mars, which is just swimming. The air wasn't very good, although I couldn't see any twinkling going on. I spent a while looking at the loveliness of the Pleiades, with some nebulosity about the brighter stars, and had a go at M1, but couldn't come up with it. As I have to work in the morning, that was it for me.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Nice one WH. I'm hoping to see the comet again tonight, maybe even photograph it some more.

Hope your bread is good.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Casus belli]

Nice report although a little more detail would be nice.

What kind of bread is it?

What shape is the bread?

Does the bread have a companion cupcake?

Is the bread a brown dwarf or a white super giant?

[The Warthog]

OK, tonight I did a whole wheat - oatmeal loaf, in a loaf pan, and did a french bread in the bread maker to clean it out. They were both brown dwarfs, although I made a white supergiant last week. My wife was so impressed with that one, she gave it to her sister.

I don't do cupcakes.