Comet 2019/Y4

[Mike JW]

Superb skies last night. The best they get in my part of GB - mag 5.7 stars easily visible BUT so windy that I could only find one place to use the camera. Even visual with the Dob was tricky. In the end I had to abandon observing

Bill's recent comet post inspired me to comet hunt -actually about the only target worth going for as the telescope and I were hard up against the house. Had to be very careful with hitting GOTO as the scope would have rammed into the front door.

Nice visual observation, then popped in the camera.

Comet has slight asymmetry, no obvious tail, very tight inner coma, then less bright area surrounding it.

The montage below is a time difference of 15 minutes - look closely and you can see the comet has moved. The time difference between picture 2 and 3 is just 3.5 minutes and shows movement of the comet. This thing is motoring (as they all do). The galaxy on the far left above the two stars is possibly UGC 5061.

 Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Mike JW

[Martin Meredith]

Very nice sequence -- that's fast! I'll take a look when we next get a clear night. The skies have been milky for days here, with a fair amount of wind too. Your setup sounds a bit like mine: the windier it is, the nearer the house, with a fine estimate of whether the end of the scope will hit the door...

Martin 

[RobertI]

Nicely done.