Ison and Encke

[robbieboy]

Got up at 4am this morning so see if i could spot Ison. I must admit it was quite a bit fainter than i imagined in my 8inch dob, the area its in is pretty light polluted too, so that didn't help. Didn't manage to see its tail but the nucleus was definitely visible. If i didn't know it was a comet i would have said it was a globular cluster. After Ison hopped across to look at Vesta and Ceres then on to Encke. I found Encke a lot easier and slightly brighter but still no tail. Hopefully in a few week they will both be naked eye and i will be able to enjoy them in all their glory. Rob.

[kerrylewis]

Looked for both this morning with my bins and refractor but with little luck. I 'thought' that I saw ISON after looking hard where it should be but I can't really confirm it. It can only get brighter!

[Pete Presland]

Looked for both this morning with my bins and refractor but with little luck. I 'thought' that I saw ISON after looking hard where it should be but I can't really confirm it. It can only get brighter!

i had no luck myself either with bino's not even 20x50's i did see quite a few meteors though between 4:30 - 5:30 around a dozen! worth getting up though depsite the windy conditions

[nerointegrale16v]

had no luck either this morning, nextdoors house obscured anything below mars, so was stuffed

[astronymonkey]

I managed ISON from kielder on Saturday at about 5am with my 16inch.

There was definitely a faint tail, but only about a third of a degree long and there was a hint of granularity in the nucleus. I was fighting heavy dew, with frost (- 1.5 degrees) and the seeing was very mixed with it alternating between reasonably clear to hazy in a matter of 30seconds.

So unfortunately I never got enough time to really have a good luck but I couldn't see it in my 20x80 bins but that could have been the variable seeing conditions.

Cheers

[andrew63]

Don't forget Lovejoy - the brightest of the three at mag. 7 last night, and well placed heading for messier 44.

andrew

[robbieboy]

I didn't realise you can see Lovejoy too. Ill have to dig out some sky charts. Bumper time for comet spotting.

[wayneh]

i have tryed 3 times now to find all 3 comets but no look lol but saying that only been out with me scope 4 times since i got it, will try again on the next clear morning..

[skywatcher58gb]

It was definately hard to locate with an ED80 from Kielder, saw it through a C11, but the window of opportunity for imaging was pretty small. Jarralad got it at about 5am in his 80 but by 5.15 the clouds rolled in.

Dave