Best binocular for the Wirtanen comet?

[tico]

Hello,

 Which is the best binocular for Comet tipology of the Wirtanen comet ? best more magnification or more exit pupil..?

Thank you for your opinión.

Paul

[Davey-T]

I was looking at it with 11X70s last night but 10X50s should pick it out, it's very easy to sweep past as it's not as big and bright as advertised 

Dave

[Captain Scarlet]

I saw it for the very first time last night, from 20 miles W of central London (SQM 18.8 at the time), with my 15x56s (new toy). For comparison at the time, it seemed about as bright as M31, but M31 was easier to spot in a sweep of its general vicinity as the comet was spread over a greater area. But once I'd found it, I was able to deliberately lose sight and re-find it quite easily by just sweeping around. My first comet of any type, so a "tick" for me

Cheers, Magnus

[Stu]

Glad you got it Magnus. We got it last night from Esher, didn't check the sky brightness unfortunately but possibly similar to you by the time the lights had dimmed.

[Vixen4eva]

I found it the other night with my 15x70s but strangely not in my Vixen 20 x 80s. Its alot bigger than i anticipated but not as bright as i expected it to be. The skies have been rubbish here over the last few nights, constant wispy high clouds. Forecast for the weekend is dire sadly :(

[Stu]

8 minutes ago, Vixen4eva said:

I found it the other night with my 15x70s but strangely not in my Vixen 20 x 80s. Its alot bigger than i anticipated but not as bright as i expected it to be. The skies have been rubbish here over the last few nights, constant wispy high clouds. Forecast for the weekend is dire sadly

The brightness is spread over a large area, so its surface brightness away from the core is very low.

[Peter Drew]

I've had best success so far with common or garden 15x70's. Rather more difficult to find tonight due to poor transparency but better than in a 6" F5 SW refractor at 35x which was a bit disappointing.    ☹️

[BargeGazer]

10x50s last evening. Very easy to find, even though my yard is lit by a street light.

 

[The Admiral]

I spotted it with some 8x40's, though it bordered on needing averted vision. Bigger than I expected to be honest, but as Stu said, it does have low surface brightness.

Ian

[Moonshane]

It's visible where I live (quite a bit of LP) in 8x42s but thankfully it's in a dark area of the sky.

[andrew63]

It's cleared a bit now, still a slight haze, but framed nicely in the same field with the Pleiades in 8x30s

 

andrew

[BinocularSky]

My best view so far has been with 16x70, but also easily visible down to 6.5x32 and probably less (approx Bortle 4 skies).

It's a big ghostly object, so you really don't want to give it too much magnification - something that gives you an exit pupil of 4 to 5 mm and a field of view something in excess of about 2 degrees is probably near to optimal. (which is why I've not had the big bins on it - FoV would probably be too small)

[kev100]

I've seen it using my 70ED Starwave scope, and my 10x50s, but it was bigger, brighter and a better view in the Celestron 20x80s. In the 10x50s it was just a homogeneous fuzzy ball, but with the 20x80s, with their 3.7deg fov, the brighter core could easily be seen, distinct from the coma (if that's the right word). The big bins even out performed my 70ED scope!

Kev

[david_taurus83]

I tried to image it Sunday night but before the clouds rolled back in to ruin things I had a look with my Olympus 10 x 50. Easy to find as it was by M45 but it was a faint fuzz at best. Nothing like M31 for comparison .  Prob wouldn't have seen it if I didn't know it was there!