Comet C/2018 Y1

[John]

1 hour ago, John said:

I'm viewing it (1st time) with my Tak 100 currently. Best views with 24mm Panoptic and 17.3mm Delos. Nice to pick it up and hopefully follow over some of the coming nights.

 

Seeing has improved here so I also managed to see the comet with 11x70 and 8x56 binoculars. It's a fast mover so will need tracking down again when the next clear night comes along.

[Fraunhoffer]

clouds came over - so packed up. Got a pic though ?
will try stacking some in the morning (oh it is the morning...)

 

[400m f/5.6 sony a5000 30s ISO1600, tracked with EXOS-2 - single jpeg cropped]

[Fraunhoffer]

18 frames (x30s) stacked.
Mmh, I suppose that's how much it moved in 20 minutes.

[400mm f/5.6 30s ISO-1600,  18 stacked,  3 dark,  Exos2, Sony a5000]

[Ben the Ignorant]

I saw it one hour ago but not as well as last night because of the Moon and a lower altitude. Dragged the large 300mm dob close to the window and scanned where it was supposed to be but the 16x70 binoc view of the previous night was more satisfying. Finding it was also much quicker last night when it had climbed to the highest altitude around 3:30.

However the 300 allows filtering and higher powers so I removed the 24mm/82° and put in a 13mm/68° fitted with an Astronomik UHC-E broadband filter. The boundary between the outer coma became less distinct with the filter but the nucleus stood out better. I followed it for a dozen minutes and left for a moment. Came back to the scope three quarters of an hour later, it had moved enough among the stars that I had to look for it in a slightly different place.

Will try again this night around 3:30 when Leo is above a wall to the left of my west-facing window. Not too comfortable sitting in an awkward posture on the cold window sill but looking for a faint fuzzy when it's highest pays off. The sky is darker and more transparent there. Also, a binoc that's permanently attached to a tripod wouldn't allow that, these heavy things are nice to have but the handheld binoc is the only instrument that lets you look anywhere, anytime.

[Ben the Ignorant]

5 hours ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

Will try again this night around 3:30

Did it and failed, too much haze. M44 was plain to see, and even beautiful in the 16x70 but a hazy thing behind haze doesn't show through. I didn't insist because of the cold and the prospect of barely detecting it versus seeing the comet. Only thing I proved is I can wake up to my phone alarm at 3:30, and transparency is a huge factor, more than light pollution alone.

On the previous night clouds were around Leo, and the wind swept them above my location ten minutes later, but the air in the clearing was dry and dark. This time no clouds but a continuous haze that leaves no hope. Having to wait for clearings in the cloud cover is not bad after all. Now I'll play some scales on my unplugged Telecaster until the next sleep cycle kicks in.

[Fraunhoffer]

according to S&T  the comet should pass very close to NGC 2903 around 21:30 UT if you have the sky and the aperture.

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/comet-iwamoto-ascends-and-brightens/

[Nyctimene]

Spotted comet Iwamoto for the first time (after clouded-out months) this morning 02.00-03.00 CET with the Heritage 130 P. Transparency was better than most of the nights in 2018 with a NELM of 5.8 - 6.0 (UMi). The comet was an easy find, still within Leo's sickle, with 25x mag and a TFoV of 2.5°. A rather large object with a coma diameter of about 30 arc min, (compared with the distance HD 85660 to 85932); the brightness I estimated at about 7.5 mag (measured against the defocused HD 86133). DC (= degree of condensation) 3 to 4. At  81x, a prominent core region was obvious, with glimpses of the starlike "false nucleus"; all parameters rather congruent with the Sky and Telescope article. No tail visible; rapid movement, recognizable within 5 minutes, to the west. A nice object, equally in the 7x50 Fujinon binos, and even in my wife's tiny Pentax Papilio II (6.5x21). - Had a short look afterwards at the Leo triplett M 65/66 and 3628, the latter directly visible, and a long streak with AV.  -  Hoping to observe the extremely close pass (only 3 arc min distant from the center of NGC 2903!) at 22.30 CET; thanks, Fraunhoffer, for the Heads Up!

Stephan

 

[maw lod qan]

Had my hopes set, marked my calender for its closest pass on the 12th.

but a cold front pushed in, clouds rain all night and it's still raining now

Great to others had success.

[Stub Mandrel]

Well... I've just checked Stellarium and with averted vision I've either seen the comet or NGC2903 in my Celestron 8x42 bins.

Which is the brighter?

[Davey-T]

11 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Well... I've just checked Stellarium and with averted vision I've either seen the comet or NGC2903 in my Celestron 8x42 bins.

Which is the brighter?

I can make out the little triangle of stars it's passing through and possibly a fuzzy thing in the middle of them, using 11 x 70s keeping an eye on it to see if it moves, lot of contrails and bits of cloud being annoying.

Dave 

[Stub Mandrel]

I can see this little equilateral triangle of two stars and either the comet or galaxy very faint at the apex in my 10" dob.

Update --- I changed to a 25mm ep from 32 and they became (just) visible as a tiny possibly elongated smudge for the galaxy (is that what most galaxies look like?!!!) and a tiny smudge for the comet.

Despite being close to the moon I saw a fair bit of texture in M42 and the trapezium was clear as day. Betelgeuse was amazingly orange.

 

I think I saw a star through my bins

[mdstuart]

I can see the comet and galaxy now. The comet is MUCH brighter and moving away to the left in a newt scope.

[Ben the Ignorant]

59 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Which is the brighter?

2903 is mag 9 with a rather strong surface brightness and it's more compact, Iwamoto is mag 6 with a low surface brightness, and it's larger, thus more diffuse. The comet's nucleus is much more luminous than its whole halo while the galaxy doesn't have such a huge spread of luminosity between center and disk.

[John]

8 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

I can see the comet and galaxy now. The comet is MUCH brighter and moving away to the left in a newt scope.

Great stuff - the cloud is just too thick here to make out anything other than the very bightest stars and the moon. Curses !

[Stub Mandrel]

4 minutes ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

2903 is mag 9 with a rather strong surface brightness and it's more compact, Iwamoto is mag 6 with a low surface brightness, and it's larger, thus more diffuse. The comet's nucleus is much more luminous than its whole halo while the galaxy doesn't have such a huge spread of luminosity between center and disk.

I think the halo was lost in the LP for me, but I think I saw the nucleus, assuming they were positioned pretty much as in this stellarium image, but I could only see the very core of the galaxy and the dot in the comet:

[mdstuart]

It's just at the centre of the red cross now on your diagram Stub.

[Stub Mandrel]

Just now, mdstuart said:

It's just at the centre of the red cross now on your diagram Stub.

I've packed away now, but I'm confident I saw it in the dob - I had to run in and check Stellrium four times which did impact on my night vision though. Wirtanen was much more obvious.

I suspect in the bins I saw the entire group in that screenshot as one diffuse patch!

[mdstuart]

They remind me of m81/2 in a strange sort of way with the comet as m81 and NGC 2903 as m82..

[John]

Yes !!!! - the sky has cleared (a little) and I have the pair in the FoV of my 102mm refractor. Ethos 13mm showing both galaxy and comet quite clearly just now with comet brighter and almost noticably moving away from the galaxy as I watch.

Didn't think I was going to get that !

[John]

Well that didn't last long and we are back to rather murky again here. One or two further glimpses of the comet but the galaxy has become rather coy. So glad to have a scope that I can pop out quickly otherwise I might have missed seeing this pairing close together (in a line of sight kind of way) tonight.

 

[John]

Back out, with my 12 inch dob this time. Tracking the comets progress at 265x. Quite a condensed core and possibly elongated along the axis of movement ?

Quite an interesting comet to view at high power.

 

[Fraunhoffer]

10 hours ago, mdstuart said:

I can see the comet and galaxy now. The comet is MUCH brighter and moving away to the left in a newt scope.

I like the template you have there for taking notes .

 

[Nyctimene]

Was lucky with the weather, and spotted the comet's passage with the 8" f/4 Hofheim traveldob. The moon washed out much of the comet's coma, but it was still clearly brighter and larger than 2903 - very different from the displays in SkySafari and Stellarium. The bright core region was still obvious at 50x mag with a 16 mmf Ortho. The comet passed the galaxies southern edge at 22.30 CET; and I found mdstuarts comparison with M 81/M82 spot on.

Stephan

[bish]

Nice and clear here tonight - nice bright moon too unless I stop up until 2am.

[Paz]

I have missed out on this until now. I checked out the spot it was in last night (near Castor) with a ST80 but could not see anything, core or halo. I could see field stars down to mag 9.6 or so. I'm hoping once the moon has calmed down I might still be able to catch it, but it looks like it will be getting dimmer very quickly.

Does anyone know how fast it is moving through space, on Sky Safari it looks super fast at closest approach but spends most of its time slow and far out.