Comets C/2006 W3 Christensen and OF2 Broughton

[PhilM]

Managed to get a little bit of time out with the 8" reflector last night - and time to track down a couple of celestial visitors.

Comets C/2006 W3 Christensen and C/2006 OF2 Broughton are both around 10th mag and well placed at the moment.

First up: Christensen, currently in Cepheus and a short star hop from bright zeta. The comet was fairly easy to pick up with a fairly condensed nucleus (I estimated DC6). At x48 the comet shared the eyepiece with a lovely rich field of stars that is largely left out of my sketch made at x80

C/2006 OF2 Broughton is currently in Lynx and a bit of a longer star hop from Auriga for me. A little bit brighter than Christensen they were quite reminiscent of each other, though a central condensation was less apparent to me and a more diffuse coma could be soon that is less bright than the sketch might suggest.

A real pleasure to view 2 comets in the same evening.

A quick look at NGC2419, which I enjoy as an ethereal glow enhanced by the chain of 3 bright stars close by, followed by some lovely structure in M42 despite it still being fairly low and I wasn't bothered by the clouds bringing an end to the evening.

It's good to be back out there

Phil.

[Doc]

Comets are next on my list.

Sketches are really good. Again on my to do list.

Well done.

[Taff]

Hi Phil' Thanks for the info on the comets.Taff