C2017/T2 Panstarrs

[NGC 1502]

Has anyone managed to spot this comet visually from the UK ?    

Last night I had a second try using my 10” Dob. I swept the whole area N of M38 at 44x 1.5 degree field.   Tried at 86x 0.7 degree field because reports from observers under good skies suggest a very small apparent size.   Spent about 20 minutes but no luck, this was midnight to 00.20 when Auriga was at high elevation.  Obviously the bright moon didn’t help.

Not giving up of course, this comet is supposed to be brightening and perhaps a moonless night at my club’s dark site will bring success.

Thanks in advance for any reports, Ed.

[Wiu-Wiu]

I saw it 2 weeks ago at New Moon, but from a dark location in France. 12" dob, quite surprisingly pretty brightish and galaxy-like, so definately no doubt there was something there. 

[Fraunhoffer]

yes on Monday-Tuesday night after the moon had set. North of M38 and very very faint, just discernable with averted position using a 12" dob when it was nearly overhead. I double checked the location using Kstars and Stellarium and moved the scope around a bit to check it wasn't my mind playing tricks or a speck of dust somewhere. It was right where it was supposed to be.

 

 

[pjsmith_6198]

I last saw it on 11/25/2019.   It's still pretty faint, but I was able to see it with a 20mm EP (62.5x).   So it's  getting brighter.   I first saw it a couple of weeks earlier and it was not visible with the 20mm and only appeared as a small puff of fog in a 7mm or under.     On the 25'th,  with a 6mm EP it looked like it had 2 central condensations.  One was the comet and the other was a mag 13.6 star that it was very close to.   I watched it long enough to see the comet move away from the star.   I verified with Starry Nights afterwords to confirm what was going on.   The coma was not round, but it didn't really look like a tail.   It did look very much like a galaxy.   I tried a comet filter but it wasn't very responsive to it.     It didn't kill it, but it didn't make it easier to see.

The SkyLive.com has a observed magnitude of 10.3.    It's about a magnitude better than it was.    When you find it, try higher magnifications, you can see more detail.

 

Phil

[Jiggy 67]

Skylive has highlighted it for December 13th as "Comet PANSTARRS passes NGC 1528 For several nights commencing on Friday, December 13, the path of comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) is predicted to carry it close to the north of a pair of bright open star clusters designated NGC 1545 and NGC 1528, also collectively named the M & M Double Cluster. This area of sky will be high in the eastern evening sky near the bright star Capella. Although it won’t peak in visibility until early 2020, when viewed in a backyard telescope at medium power, the comet should be bright enough to be seen in December as a dim, greenish fuzzy patch next to the clusters’ stars."

Should be in a good position to view

Edited December 2, 2019 by Jiggy 67

[Littleguy80]

The comet seems noticeably brighter tonight. Perhaps a sign of better transparency compared to my other recent sessions. The core seems to be showing now. Well worth a look if you’re out 

[Wiu-Wiu]

I was lucky to be able to get my setup out last night and T2 was on the menu. 

I'll try to stack my subs later but here's one 60s sub fresh out of the camera. 

Taken with Asi 071mc pro, Esprit 120 on CEM 60. 

[Space Hopper]

I tried to spot it last Friday evening, Nov 29, up at our darksite to the north of Derby.

I spent a good 30 mins trying to spot it, but no joy that night.

i was using a 140mm refractor and hunted high and low for it. It wasn't a very good night though transparency wise : i know that because M1 was hard to spot.

Its currently listed as Mag 10.1 on Sky safari

I've not given up the hunt yet though, and will return to it soon.

[Wiu-Wiu]

As promised, 2 stacks - one B&W and one color. 60 minutes with the Esprit 120

 

 

[Davey-T]

Took some subs of it a couple of nights ago but not gotten around to them yet.

Dave

[Nyctimene]

Spotted C 2017/T2 Panstarrs this morning at 02.30 CET with the 5.1" Skywatcher Heritage Flextube (after 30 mins of fruitless search before - I had SkySafari set for the wrong time!  beware!) at the predicted position between two 7 mag/8 mag stars. I had to switch to mag 81 (Seben Zoom at 8mmf) to make out a faint, slightly oblong disc of about 1 arc min coma diameter. To me, the comet appeared considerably fainter than predicted, around 11.0 mag (compared with the defocussed close by star TYC 3347-0871-1, listed with 11.6mag). No tail visible; DC 5; steadily with AV, sometimes a stellar nucleus flashing up. Looked, as others have mentioned, like a galaxy; not impressive, but still a reward for perseverance in a frosty -5° C night (along with many curses and numb/aching fingertips despite the otherwise very good Astrogloves).

Stephan

[Davey-T]

Worth the effort, I imaged it a couple of nights ago and a tail was clearly visible.

Dave

[JamesF]

I've not processed my data yet, but yes, there was definitely a visible tail even in the individual subs.

James

[CentaurZ]

The comet approached closest to Earth (perigee) yesterday, but will be its brightest shortly after perihelion in May. 😎

[GavStar]

I observed this last night in my 16 inch dob with night vision monoculars. Attached is a phone pic through the eyepiece - the image scale is a bit small (I use a 55mm plossl which is the best eyepiece with the nv monoculars) but the tail was clearly visible 

[Davey-T]

Took a few more pic's of it last night then discovered the dew heater had packed up and corrector plate was dewed up 😟

[discardedastro]

Literally my first attempt to shoot and process a comet - on my usual rig, so a 200mm f/5 Newt w/ ASI183MM. Tracked using the details from the Minor Planets Centre fed into PHD2 using KStars/Ekos/INDI on an EQ6-R Pro.

Processed using StarAlignment/CometAlignment/ImageIntegration/DBE in PixInsight - don't have calibration data that's current so just straight off the FITS w/o dark/flats. 10x300s exposures, Baader luminance filter.

[Littleguy80]

My final target observed tonight was this superb comet. Set amongst the star fields of Cassiopeia now, it’s a real treat. I was observing it with my 10” dob and 12.5mm BGO. As I packed up, I went back for about six “one last look”s before coming in to thaw out. Be sure to catch this comet while it’s around  

[Davey-T]

3 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

My final target observed tonight was this superb comet. Set amongst the star fields of Cassiopeia now, it’s a real treat. I was observing it with my 10” dob and 12.5mm BGO. As I packed up, I went back for about six “one last look”s before coming in to thaw out. Be sure to catch this comet while it’s around  

Any sign of a tail Neil ? according to some reports it's developing a tail.

Dave

[Littleguy80]

3 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Any sign of a tail Neil ? according to some reports it's developing a tail.

Dave

I was observing from home, so not under the best skies, but I did think there were signs of a tail. It would be interesting to see some recent images to see what they show. 

[Bagginsies]

Managed to get some subs last night (27 Feb 2020). Not great as there was a thin layer of moisture coming and going, but to be honest I was just looking to see if I could find it. Somehow I figured out how to use the GoTo RA/Dec menu on my mount as well, or I would have never found it!  🙂

With the bad weather I was constantly waiting for it to cloud over, but managed 23 x 90sec subs stacked on the comet with 10 dark and 10 bias. Stacked in DSS, final edits in Affinity Photo, still a lot to learn, but happy with what I got.

Have added the .tif file if anyone wants to give it a go. 

 

 

 

20200226 Comet T2 cloudy.tif

Edited February 28, 2020 by Bagginsies

[Fraunhoffer]

Tracked it down eventually last night with a c8 and uhc-e filter. Not the best conditions and it was just a faint barely visible haze with a brighter centre, from the garden.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Fraunhoffer

[Littleguy80]

32 minutes ago, Fraunhoffer said:

Tracked it down eventually last night with a c8 and uhc-e filter. Not the best conditions and it was just a faint barely visible haze with a brighter centre, from the garden.

Great sketch

Does the UHC filter help? I've only ever observed comets unfiltered. I know Lumicon produced the SWAN specifically for comets but I've not tried one of those.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Littleguy80

[Fraunhoffer]

Just very slightly. I lazily left it in after  Orion and M1. Sort of difference between, there's something there and there might be something there. The UHC-e is a bit wider than UHC and supposed to include the carbon emission line. I don't know if it's emitting any carbon, but it helped me find it. Nothing dramatic and not as different as when looking at a nebula.

 

[PhotoGav]

I spent some time observing this comet at the end of a good session last night. It is a hazy blob at the moment, but definitely comet like. It would be interesting to follow up the observations to see how it has moved / changed. I did wonder whether there was the suggestion of a tail, but my observing partner and I didn't agree on the direction of this potential tail, so we decided it was probably a case of averted imagination. I would love to see a time lapse of it - anyone?!