November 17, 2023: Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks spotted at last

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

After an earlier abortive attempt to spot this comet, I finally had a decent clear sky this evening, so I set up the trusty old C8, and after some planetary image with mediocre results due to poor seeing (will post results elsewhere), I put the Nagler 31T5 (the Panzerfaust) in the diagonal and star-hopped from Vega to the approximate location of the comet using the 9x50 RACI finder. I looked through the EP, and found the location was not tha approximate: the comet was just left of centre in the FOV. A very clear fuzzy blob, near circular, with perhaps a hint of elongation. Very pleased at bagging my 37th comet.

[andrew63]

Glad you saw it, it's brightened again considerable over the last few days.

https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=201769

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

2 minutes ago, andrew63 said:

Glad you saw it, it's brightened again considerable over the last few days.

https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=201769

It has clearly had a new outburst. It was much brighter than I expected. I even had a feeling I could see a hint of blue-green colour, but couldn't really be sure.