The Comet Dance

[Littleguy80]

The skies were forecast to be clear from around 1am last night. "Too late" I thought, work and the school run beckoned in the morning. Around 11:30pm, I belatedly got around to doing the dishes. A quick look out the window and nothing but solid cloud greeted me. With the time a little after midnight, I decided to quickly empty the dishwasher. Another look out the window and stars had appeared. "Just a quick 20 minutes.... maybe half an hour" I thought. Ten minutes later, me and my friend, a 10" dob were outside.

"What shall we look at?" I asked. "Cances Venatici...The Coocon Galaxy" came the response. Answering your own questions is OK when you're talking to a telescope. Makes you seem a little less crazy for asking. From Cor Caroli to Chara we journeyed, only a small adjustment was then needed to reach the Coocon. It stood out bright and bold and it's companion galaxy, known to it's friends as NGC 4485, was also enjoying the attention. We meandered onto another nearby galaxy, NGC 4449, which we'd seen before but enjoyed revisiting. This was followed by another galaxy, NGC 4460 which was harder to spot. "That's a new one for us" I commented. The only this response was from the rabbits rustling in their hutch. Looking at the Atlas, I realised we were close to a carbon star known as La Superba. A brilliant, bright orange star that's deserving of it's name. I find it's appearance more striking in the smaller 80mm frac I have. I kept this thought to myself though, given the dob already wasn't speaking to me.

The call of Messier 106 caught our attention, so that's where we went. The brightest and most striking of galaxies we saw together. "Did you know Messier was more interested in Comets than galaxies?" I asked, changing the subject. "That gives me an idea...". A short time later, and with careful study, Comet C/2020 R4 (ATLAS)  appeared as a faint hazy patch in the eyepiece. Perhaps a hint of a nucleus? Not far away was a galactic pairing of a Whale and a Hockey Stick! The Whale showed really well while the hockey stick was a bit more tricky. My main motivation for getting out to observe was another comet referred to as C/2020 T2 (Palomar). To find this Comet, it was time to visit another Messier object, a globular cluster which is number 3 on the list. A brief observation at medium power resolved a good number of stars. Leaving the collection of thousands stars behind, the hunt for the comet began. This required careful study of the star field and comparing it to electronic atlas known as SkySafari. First look and no comet could be seen. A switch of eyepiece and I thought there was something there but not sure. I started to move the dob slowly back and forth in what I coined the "Comet dance". As the star field moved back and forth, a hazy patch became increasingly apparent. One more eyepiece and a little more dancing and the observation was confirmed. This felt like the right time to call it a night with time showing 1:30am. I took my friend the dob back inside and thanked it for our dance under the stars and all that we saw together. Thanks for reading my slightly silly observing report!

[wookie1965]

Brilliant at least you can get out, forecast was supposed to be clear here from 2am but I was in bed up at 4am it was full cloud. 

Some really nice objects there galaxies I won't see unless I get to a dark sky site which will be quite a while yet. 

[Kon]

Nice light-hearted report and some nice targets there!

[John]

Congrats on the "2 comet" session Neil

When I observed these two a few nights back I found Palomar a lot smaller than Atlas but not as faint as the then billed magnitude 12 would have me believe.

Hoping to observe tonight so I'll probably have another look at them.

 

[Littleguy80]

8 minutes ago, John said:

Congrats on the "2 comet" session Neil

When I observed these two a few nights back I found Palomar a lot smaller than Atlas but not as faint as the then billed magnitude 12 would have me believe.

Hoping to observe tonight so I'll probably have another look at them.

 

Thanks John  Palomar was definitely trickier than R4 Atlas. I agree that it’s brighter mag 12. I think they would have been beyond me with the skies at home.