Comet C/2007 W1 Boattini

[scotastro]

For those of you who like this sort of thing there is a nice little comet in Aries. It is quite easy to spot at 7.9 mag (admittedly using a 16" scope at 66x) - I thought I could just see it in 7x50 bins - but may be not.

It is a round smudge about the size of M92 with a slightly elongated core. It was only 0.5 deg SE of Mu Ari and is slowing moving north. There are no bright fuzzies in the area so it cannot be confused for anything else. Reasonably dark skies are a must so you need to wait until after midnight.

The location map is from Sky Map Pro

happy hunting

Mike

GAC

Galloway Astronomy Centre

www.gallowayastro.com

[AlphaTau]

You beaut Mike

I was looking for this comet last week and wasn't sure if what I saw was it. At that time it was just to the right of the white star (is that the Greek letter Pi?), below its' current position.

Your map shows the star formations better than Stellarium and I wasn't sure where I was looking, but I recognise the kind of trapezium shape it makes with the other three stars (3 white, 1 yellow) about the same mag.

I was using 8x40 binoculars and could make it out with averted vision.

Thanks Mike

Andrew

P.S. My first Comet