Ison overshadowed

[andrew63]

Just back in  from an early morning comet look.  Saw Ison for the first time about 5am - about 2 deg  below Gamma Virginis.  This area is still low down and not well placed, the comet was not great at 27x quite small and good see no tail. Conditions were crisp but not great or dark in this part of the sky. At 54x still not much more in appearance than a small defuse deep sky object, with a bright spot at the centre. Difficult to detect in 10x50s also.

Lovejoy is much the better of the two, riding high in a darker sky - about 3 deg above Mu Leonis and a fine binocular object.  In the telescope at 54x a bright core in a fuzzy ball and much larger than Ison and i'd estimate about a whole magnitude brighter.  

Tried for Encke, in lower part of sky again in 10x50s but no success. By 5.45 it's getting lighter and the birds are singing. Saw a few lovely meteors also, but was good to see Ison as it heads toward the sun.

andrew

[Pete Presland]

totally agree Lovejoy is a pretty easy spot, even an easy capture with a fixed DSLR. a nice fuzzy green glow high in the morning sky!

[Ouroboros]

Good report.  You did better than I did.  i am not where my telescope is so had to do with my Canon camera set up on my EQ5 mount. looking at the images now i was defeated by light pollution and low position of the comet in a brightening sky. Saw mercury though which is some compensation because I rarely see it.  Also saw the ISS as it passed through Virgo about 5:30 am.  Oh and a meteor too.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Had similar experience. Lovejoy totally stole the show. ISON was much harder to find in bins. Just a slightly fuzzy star

[Ouroboros]

Ah! So ISON is viewable through bins is it? I tried but couldn't spot it. But then I had difficulty working out the stars of the constellation Virgo because of poor visibility.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Ah! So ISON is viewable through bins is it? I tried but couldn't spot it. But then I had difficulty working out the stars of the constellation Virgo because of poor visibility.

It is visible, but showed up as a fuzzy star, not very impressive, rather than the glorious coma shown by Lovejoy. I did use Helios Apollo 15x70 bins, which capture twice the light of 16x50s. I spotted the fuzz around the core of ISON in averted vision first, and later picked it up in direct vision. What I got was a fairly faint star showing fuzziness around it, whereas brighter stars nearby showed no such fuzz, ruling out glare. I would guess its brightness is around mag 8-8.5 (though this is hard to estimate at this low altitude with haze).

[Ouroboros]

I must have a look for Lovejoy.

PS A slightly dodgy dealer in antiques comes to mind when I hear that name.

[northwalesparry]

Good report. You did better than I did. i am not where my telescope is so had to do with my Canon camera set up on my EQ5 mount. looking at the images now i was defeated by light pollution and low position of the comet in a brightening sky. Saw mercury though which is some compensation because I rarely see it. Also saw the ISS as it passed through Virgo about 5:30 am. Oh and a meteor too.

[northwalesparry]

I saw iss and meteor too.

[Ludd]

I caught ISON this morning, having risen at 5.30.  It wasq uite easily visible in my ancient 11x80 Comet Hunter bins, but no tail visible, and I forgot to try for Lovejoy.  I was amazed at how many satellites were buzzing around up there, and by how quickly the morning light drowned everything out.

[Paul M]

I'm jealous!

I had a lovely night with my scope last night. But by the time the Moon was setting and I'd had a good look at Jupiter I went to bed. East is my worst direction and the Morning comets just won't make it above the roofs before sunrise