Comet Lovejoy Q2

[kerrylewis]

Did a quick trip out to a darker sky site that I'm going to use in future. Lovejoy was clearly naked eye and a glorious sight in the Canon bins - big and bright

[John]

It's still very nice here

Making the most of it coz the forecast for clear nights over the next few days is not too good.

[happy-kat]

Gosh it is cold! Managed just over an hour and spent 15 minutes of that trying to find it in the telescope but I did it. I sat less than 15 foot away with my back to the LED street light and resorted to draping stuff over my head to deal with the light that bounced off my eyepeice into my eye making for very low contrast viewing. I normally hide away in the porch area but the comet's position meant venturing down the front path.

The best view was in the Maxvision 16mm and my memory 'thinks' it saw green as I recall what I saw but I know the reality is that I did not see any colour. Deffinately no tail. The 6mm was not a nice view too much magnification.

Took a look at m42 and the nebula was very clear with straight vision looking yet everything else I looked at was low grade, Jupiter was almost invisble with defraction spikes but I checked colimation before I started observing and a star test was OK so I guess just one of those nights.

Warming up now but very pleased that did see the comet with the telescope.

[Moonshane]

I am probably wrong but I suspect Lovejoy occulted a faint star that was (behind of course) close to the core when I first looked tonight. Could not see it later. Hope imagers got it.

[camoscato]

Perfectly good description and that sounds bang on to me. Well done!

Many thanks! 

[Stridor]

Got my first view of Comet Lovejoy last night; just about visible to naked eye from my garden (appartly mag 3.8 tonight), but through a pair of 8x44 bins it was very impressive; then used my ED102 with 24mm Panoptic giving a magnification of 30x : a core just about being discernable. 

[Scosmico]

I wonder how people can give stellar magnitudes to comets. Lovejoy was visible at naked eye as a blob rather than stellar from my site. The comet was slightly brighter than Delta Arietis 4.35. But the comet's blob shape made difficult to accuratle determine its visual mag. Observing with naked eye and bin 8x40. I almost can say that with averted vision using the bin I saw a trace of a tail close to the coma, but I think it was a suggestion caused by the coma appering alightly elengated to one side.

Stelar Visibility at zenith 5.54 mag.

[Stu]

Don't think that's quite right Shane. Absolute magnitude is the objects intrinsic brightness, without any attenuation from intervening dust etc at a set distance. Apparent mag is as it appears to us on Earth.

It is more a question of surface brightness for extended objects ie the magnitude relative to the surface area.

Surface Brightness =

mag + 2.5 log10 Area

is I think the formula (copied from Wiki! )

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_brightness

I also remember reading that Stephen O'Meara would defocus known brightness stars to the same extent as the object he was viewing in order to estimate their magnitude.

Stu

[RodexMtl]

Comet Lovejoy spotted yesterday with NALM of 3 through 10x50 binoculars! It was a fast session, because of the -18 °C! Was great to show it to a friend beginning to have interest in Astronomy, and more rewarding to see him find it ( a comet for the first time) easily because he saw the astrosketch that I did some days ago and he said " it's exactly as you showed it to me on the paper! That's why I found it!"

I'm just beginning with astrosketching and I'm really pleased of how it can show the observations u made through the optic equipment. I think I avoided any frustration that anyone could have, thinking they will see an image astrophotography class through the eye piece, and Au contraire the sketch gave him more interest!

[Moonshane]

Don't think that's quite right Shane. Absolute magnitude is the objects intrinsic brightness, without any attenuation from intervening dust etc at a set distance. Apparent mag is as it appears to us on Earth.

It is more a question of surface brightness for extended objects ie the magnitude relative to the surface area.

Surface Brightness =

mag + 2.5 log10 Area

is I think the formula (copied from Wiki! )

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_brightness

I also remember reading that Stephen O'Meara would defocus known brightness stars to the same extent as the object he was viewing in order to estimate their magnitude.

Stu

cheers Stu

obviously I need to read more LoL

I will delete my spurious entry and in future not post off the top of my head ( which can clearly result in ne talking out of an orifice at the other end). :-)

[Stu]

cheers Stu

obviously I need to read more LoL

I will delete my spurious entry and in future not post off the top of my head ( which can clearly result in ne talking out of an orifice at the other end). :-)

[emoji6]

Google is my friend, I had a vague recollection and checked it out online [emoji3]

[Helen]

Got it again last night in both the 15x70 binos and the scope - I prefer the view through the binos  What was great was that I got to show our nephew too   then we went on to Orion Nebula (with him clearly picking out the trapezium) and Jupiter and moons.  He enjoyed it   (and the chinese that was waiting which caused the session to be short and sweet!!)

Helen

[DRT]

It is very easy to find right now as it is at exactly the same altitude as Pleiades. Just focus on the cluster to get it pin sharp and then swing directly west until you see the fuzzy green blob

[Moonshane]

Indeed Derek. Find m45, pan right (west) and as m46 leaves the field on the left lovejoy enters on right just inside a trapezium of bright stars.

[DRT]

It is looking very good this evening but we have quite a bit of high slow-moving cloud that keeps spoiling the view. Grrrr.

[ronl]

As Derek has said, very easy to find tonight, and my best view so far, the clouds

have just blanketed the sky, but I had a good hour, the seeing was quite good, no

thin cloud to spoil the view, and the forecast for tomorrow night looks even better,

can't wait.

[Nogbad]

Finally a clear (if exceptionally cold) night and I went out with my binoculars. Very easy to find - a large fuzzy blob. Was tempted to take the telescope out to the garden but the snow has frozen and the path is a death trap. I believe tomorrow night is supposed to be very clear so I might set up earlier and have a closer look.

[trynda1701]

Finally got to see Comet Lovejoy C/2014Q2 after all the foul weather we've had with the three big storms over the last week.

Saturday 17th January 2015. Even though the observation was from indoors, at 23:30UT, spotted Lovejoy in my CZJ 10x50W's easily, just east of the line formed by the stars Zeta and Delta Arietis (Botein), and about a third of the way down from Zeta to Delta. Even though the transparency wasn't great at that altitude, and my window was slightly misted due to the cold outside, it was a good observation. Not sure about magnitude, to me, it seemed brighter when defocusing stars than nearby Tau 2 Arietis (mag 5) to the north east, but fainter than Delta (mag 4.3). Perhaps others with more experience at estimating magnitudes can comment if they see the comet tonight? Followed Lovejoy till midnight, then had a quick look at the Belt of Orion and M42/NGC 1981 to finish off, but as a neighbours porch light was now in my line of sight (I had been shielded from it while observing Lovejoy), I made that my only other observation.

Still, another simple yet satisfying observation made! With the way the weather has been over the last year or so, I'll take these sightings any day over nothing!

Mark

[trynda1701]

By the way, although this is a relatively bright comet, thanks to Stephen Tonkin for his finder charts in the January 2015 issue of his Binocular Sky Newsletter. Cheers, Sir!

Mark

[Paul M]

A clear sky here now the showers have cleared off.

Q2 looked much the same as last night through the bins and I'm sure that I'm just imagining the hint of a tail I thought I saw. The sky is just too bright.

Using Delta Arietis as a reference I think I just picked it up naked eye. At mag 4.35 the star is a real struggle for me and I needed to use the end of a roof ridge as a reference to find it. Eventually I got a fix on the star and then caught fleeting glimpses of nebulosity. No way would I have found it naked eye without the fixed references.

[Nogbad]

Clear skies and a good view of Lovejoy. Was able to see the core once the telescope was settled and I frozen solid

Despite gloves my hands are still numb - time passes quickly when out stargazing.

[Hals]

Managed a first look at Lovejoy with the 10-inch Dob before it clouded this evening. Almost stellar-like core, very bright. Nice orange star in the same field to give a bit of contrast. Best views at low power and a hint of lateral darkening to the east and west of the outer coma, still no tail visible though. Visible to the naked eye too when you know just where to look. A nice object,easy to find and easy to show the non-astro minded too !

[Anthonyw85]

Oh my god it was cold but I finally found it.No visible tail for me just a large white haze just along and down from M45.I am delighted as it's my first comet now time to defrost myself.

[Mikea]

Have successfully observed with binos over the last few nights. Is it atmospheric conditions that makes the comet appear to flicker sometimes or does the brightness actually vary with time?

[Stridor]

Just been out for my second viewing of this Comet. A bit of cloud dodging required, but excellent view; core clearly visible with averted vision. ED102 + 13mm (55x), quite a treat