Comet P46/Wirtanen

[paul mc c]

Finally got a chance to see this comet last night,couldnt see it in my 10x50s but of course easy in the 9.25 and 12" dob,very fast moving and clear to see in the pic which was 5x1 min subs,just as a record really to say i have seen it.

[Eastman]

Great paul, I really wish the clouds here getting blown away so I can take a look myself.

[Pete Presland]

It certainly is shifting across the heavens. 

[pjsmith_6198]

I saw comet Wirtanen for the first time last night.   I live in a dark red zone and was expecting the comet to be very difficult to see because it's supposed to be very large and diffuse since it's passing close to earth.    However, it has a very bright false nucleus which is easy to see.    I was able to easily see it in my finder.   I looked at it from magnifications from 60x to 189x.  The higher mags didn't seem to add much.      Paul's photo shows it pretty much as I saw it through the 20mm XW.   I could see only a little of the coma surrounding the core.    From a dark site, it would have been much bigger.     However, it's pretty bright now, about mag 4 and it's easy to see even from a dark red zone.    So nobody has to go to a dark just to see it.   

[Mikey0368]

I'm hoping to get out and take some pictures tomorrow night. Will I be able to use my Go To, and if so what am I punching in?

Thanks.

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, Mikey07 said:

I'm hoping to get out and take some pictures tomorrow night. Will I be able to use my Go To, and if so what am I punching in?

Thanks.

You can use co-ordinates from Stellarium, CDC etc, enter them in advance as a user object for the time you're planning to start imaging it as it's moving all the time so co-ord's change continuously.

Dave

[Cosmic Geoff]

After a couple of failed attempts on earlier nights, I observed the comet on 12 Dec around 9pm with my GoTo C8SE (203mm).  Easy to see. This is an urban location and the sky was accordingly poor so I assume what I saw was the bright central core.  I looked for a couple of ~9th mag comets currently in the sky but could not see them.

[Mikey0368]

11 hours ago, Davey-T said:

You can use co-ordinates from Stellarium, CDC etc, enter them in advance as a user object for the time you're planning to start imaging it as it's moving all the time so co-ord's change continuously.

Dave

Excellent, thanks.