March 30, 2013: Binocular session with the boys; Panstarrs looking pale

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

After a grey day it cleared up nicely early in the evening, so I said the boys could stay up a bit to view the comet again. At 20:05 the sky was sort of dark enough, and we went outside onto the street armed with 2 pairs of 15x70 bins (the boys put their TS on a tripod, I used the Helios hand-held). I quickly found delta And, and moved right and upwards a bit, and there was the comet, but far fainter than just a few days back (Wednesday). The tail looked very short and the core was clearly fainter than before, when compared to delta and epsilon And. I aimed the TS 15x70 for the boys, and I must say you do notice the difference. The comet was much harder in the TS than in the Helios Apollo. The boys did find it, and were very pleased. They did note that the first time they spotted it (March 14) was way better. Frank wanted to do a bit more Messier hunting as well (he had bagged 19 last summer, so I pointed him to M45, which was an easy capture). We then moved to the back of the house to have a look at some more Messiers. I showed them how to find M42. Not that impressive in the late twilight, and not enough magnification to show M43, but Frank was pleased with another Messier jotted down. M44 was next, followed by M35. Having reached a messier count of 23 and having seen the comet again, the kids went to bed very pleased indeed.

[KevUU]

Hey good going Michael, sounds like two very lucky kids there Frank'll've overtaken me soon

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Thanks Kev. Frank's Messier count shot up during a single session in southern France, last summer. It's like shooting fish in a barrel in the Sco-Sag region. A bit of help from dad was useful of course.