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Comet Lovejoy Q2

kerrylewis

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mjpfc

mjpfc

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Just come in from looking at it with the Newt.

It's about 1 degree NW of M79 (And much brighter, around mag 5.5) and about 1 degree ESE of Epsilon Lepus,

Near a triangle of 8th Mag stars with a 10th mag chum to the north.

It is a little misty at street level tonight but the Comet is bright and high with the halo extensive, and the false coma

a magnitude brighter than the rest of it but pin head like.

With enough magnification on it to darken the sky,  A/V and a little shake of the tube I believe I am seeing a faint

thin Line extending away upwards for about a quarter of a degree. This is quite persistent (though most of my delusions

tend to be) and so I think I may have the tail.

Another couple of nights and it will be above the houses to my south, so I can go out at a descent Hour mid evening to see

the thing.  A few more will also get this moon out of the way. I think it is too bright for Luna to make it dishappear, but with a fully

dark sky it should be clear whether the Tail is visual (or I am kidding myself), and we should also get more detail.

The Sky to the east is too misty and bright for my DSO quarry in eastern Leo tonight, but that's not going to upset me with a

visitor like this in the sky.

Kettle on...........last of the mince pies...ahh there they are...

Clear Skies         Mick

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RodexMtl

RodexMtl

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I just arrived from see it!

Using my 10x50 binoculars, from my back balcony, in Montreal, Canada. It makes an isosceles triangle with Nihal and epsilon Lepus, being the comet the southest point. With a Naked Eye Limiting Magnitud of only 3.8 (based on the counts of stars in the gemini region to determine the NELM), it was a fuzzy ball, greenish, but clearly visible! The coma was spheric in the FOV. The photography of goodricke1 shows the exact position as I founded with the binoculars (of course, in the FOV I could see only Nihal,  HR 1762, epsilon lepus, the comet and two little stars just east from the comet

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Paul M

Paul M

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Tonight was my 3rd consecutive night of spotting Q2 and each one has been successively more difficult.

Just now it was quite difficult even though the sky was very clear. It can only be the increasing moon brightess causing it.

If I hadn't already got a mental image of it's path through the field stars I'd not have picked it up so easily if at all. Once I did get it I needed averted vision to keep contact.

It's going to get worse until the Moon reaches past 3rd quarter. Unfortunately this is my last night in Cumbria for 4 weeks. Just as the moon gets back to 1st base!

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John

John

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I've just found it again, this time with my 12" dob. It was just about visible in the 9x50 finder and looked pretty bright at 80x. Not much in the way of structure apart from the condensed brighter center but it's very low down here with both the moon and atmospheric extinction to contend with so perhaps no surprise that it's not more impressive at the moment.

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Stu

Stu

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Was that with binos or naked eye Paul?

I'm back home in Walton on Thames tonight, and just found it very easily in the 15x50 binos. Still just round in appearance with a brightening centre but very clear despite the moon

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Special K

Special K

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OK, happy now I've bagged it with 10x50's and at least I knew what I was looking at this time! Not much time tonight for me to get more equipment on it and think I'll wait till its higher in January anyway.

Mr Lovejoy should be very pleased to have discovered another comet within the year to wow us yet again! Must require quite a bit of patience and dedication to spot these.

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David Smith

David Smith

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I managed to get my 10" dob on it tonight. It is still very low to the tree line and with the Moon as well the coma is not much brighter than the background sky. Central condensation is obvious though which I could not detect in 10x50s. I was not able to detect in the 9x50 finder so had to sweep the area at low power in order to find it. This may have been partly due to the enormous amounts of dew on my finder though.

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Paul M

Paul M

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Was that with binos or naked eye Paul?

I'm back home in Walton on Thames tonight, and just found it very easily in the 15x50 binos. Still just round in appearance with a brightening centre but very clear despite the moon

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's with the bins.

Even on Sunday night with a darker sky I couldn't pick it out unaided.

Maybe my eye's are past their best :(

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mjpfc

mjpfc

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Same here last night (Binos only though), though its quite high up now for the IOW.

Its very cloud down here tonight, though Luna/Selene  will be cruising across the area and getting bigger all the time 

so I think I will keep track of it with the Bins and keep the big guns doing other things until the Moon is not so much of a nuisance.

(i.e. My usual occupation when the moon is big, Observe the moon).

Mick.

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happy-kat

happy-kat

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I took some images last night I hoped to string them together in startrails but boy it looked pap so this is a crop of one image rather sretched to show the comet. I could not see this with my 3 x 30 bins. The sky was murky and there was thin cloud.

post-28282-0-36521100-1420054422_thumb.j

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alan potts

alan potts

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I picked up Lovejoy last night with the 10.5X70 Bino's and it was fairly easy to see even though the Moon is very well on towards full. There is no doubt that the 11 degree advantage I have over the UK helps spotting this though if the Moon was out the way  I am sure it would be fairly easy, maybe even without optical aid.

Tonight I tracked it down again and even though the Moon is closer and fuller decided to venture out to the obsevarotry in the now minus 10 degree and getting lower night air. Pushing back the roof was an effort with the snow on the runners but a few good attacks at it moving the whole thing back and forth did the trick. I got onto Lovejoy within a minute of alignment check with the trusty 41mm Panoptic giving the widest FOV, a full and mind numbing .91 of a degree. I upped the power to first X98 with the 31mm Nagler and then to X145 with the 21mm Ethos. The seeing was fairly good without being something to shout about which it normally is on such chilly nights. I could see the faintest evience of a tail but no detail was seen, it was most certainly not a round blob but also I could not see it like the photos eariler in the thread, again I am sure that I would have seen this so much better without the Apollo program landing site high above.

After 40 minutes I called it a night as I had the feeling that body parts were about to drop off, these goto handsets are not designed for being used with mountaineering gloves :grin: . I was pleased I made the effort.

Alan.

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alan potts

alan potts

Posted
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Nick,

Was there any info on the brightness of this comet, I didn't see any in the thread. I had the feeling it could have been a naked eye comet as it was an easy spot albeit with binos or a 50mm finder with a 85% moon not a million miles away?

Alan

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Bathurst

Bathurst

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Thanks to all in this thread for the information and excitement :)

I'm going to attempt my first viewing tonight should the cloud stay away long enough, I'll go down the beach (English Channel) with my little bins and compact camera to see what I can get!

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nicoscy

nicoscy

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Just got some triple love from Lovejoy. Observed through Zeiss 8x42 Terra ED, Nikon Action Extreme 10x50 and Celestron Skymaster 15x70 from the middle of my oh-so-light-polluted city.

This boy's magnitude has improved considerably since my observations on the 24th and 26th of December - easily by a full magnitude! Despite the moon glow, it was a piece of cake in the Zeiss, quite easy in the Nikon and actually challenging in the Celestron!!!

I was stunned to actually see less fuzziness with the big binoculars. It's the first time I have done a side by side comparison and as with most things in life, you get what you pay for. In this case quality beat aperture by a mile or two.

So, despite a 97% Moon today Vs a 8% Moon on the 24th, the Comet was just now at 24.4 degrees Vs 15.6 degrees on the 24th and this compensates quite a bit for the increased light from the moon.

The fuzzy patch has roughly twice the diameter it had 10 days ago. It is now 8.5 degrees down and to the right of Rigel and 7.5 degrees up and to the right of mLep. Considering that mLep is 8 degrees below and a bit to the right of Rigel, this triangular arrangement makes the Comet easy pickings.

I wish you all fair weather tonight and good luck with this comet. We still have all of January to observe it and it will reach magnitude 4 in the next few days. Next Saturday as soon as the Moon sets is the best time to observe it as from them on it is expected to start losing magnitude.

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