Two comets in the Giraffe and One in the Queen

[John]

Nice dark night here. Got the 12 inch dob out.

My first target tonight was to be comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas which is in Camelopardalis (the Giraffe). I noticed from Cartes du Ciel that comet C/2107 T2 Panstarrs was in the same constellation tonight (not often you get two comets in the same constellation) so I also targeted that one.

Despite being reported as more or less similar in brightness to T2 Panstarrs, I found Y4 Atlas quite hard to pick out. Got it in the end - rather dim, small but elongated patch of light. Needed 199x to pull it out clearly.

T2 Panstarrs on the other hand was much easier to find, somewhat more extensive (75x was fine to see it well) and more condensed towards it's centre. A better comet to observe than Y4 Atlas by quite a margin tonight IMHO. Can't quite believe that it is no brighter than Y4 Atlas - it certainly looks brighter

I also noticed that comet C/2019 Y1 Atlas was not far away in Cassiopeia (the Queen). That one was dimmer than Panstarrs but still a better looking patch of light than Y4 Atlas. Also tonight it's right alongside the lovely open cluster NGC 225 and they make a great pair in the 75x field of view of my Ethos 21mm eyepiece.

So three comets thus far and clear dark skies forecast for the night. Happy bunny here

 

 

 

[Star101]

Well done to see three in one night 

I read on line, suggestions that C/2019 Y4 Atlas could be breaking up...Maybe this is why its not so bright any more.

https://earthsky.org/space/how-to-see-bright-comet-c-2019-y4-atlas

I took a snipping tool image of the comet from my screen last week....It looked elongated compared to what I saw a week before that.