Comet 13P Olbers

[mcrowle]

Has anyone here successfully observed this periodic comet? Its elongation from the sun is gradually increasing, but it stays very low in the evening twilight.

I'm hoping to start trying to spot it on any clear evenings coming up. I'll have to use binoculars, though, as it's not in a direction I can reach from home. Good luck anyone else giving it a go!

Regard, Mike.

[Gonariu]

Do you know the coordinates?

[mcrowle]

It's at RA 7^h 41.1^m and Dec 41° 46' at 11pm (BST) tonight, in Lynx, according to heavens-above.com. I check that site for a comet's position before each session, though I don't have GoTo, so it's all about star-hopping for me .

Regards, Mike.

Edited June 20 by mcrowle

[mcrowle]

It was very clear this evening, albeit with perpetual twilight and a nearly full moon, but I thought I’d have my first attempt to see Comet Olbers.

Unfortunately, although I was able to capture it with a camera, it was not visible via my 7 x 50 binoculars. I plan to try again once the moon is waning and rising later.

Regards, Mike.

[mcrowle]

Although this is an observing thread, here's the heavily cropped 135mm lens image for reference.

Neither the comet nor any of the stars shown were visible in the 7 x 50s, low in the twilight.

Regards, Mike.

Edited June 21 by mcrowle

[maw lod qan]

What camera and settings did you use to capture this so good in the twilight?

[mcrowle]

3 hours ago, maw lod qan said:

What camera and settings did you use to capture this so good in the twilight?

Thanks. I stacked just 9 x 20-sec exposures taken at ISO 1600 and f/4. The camera was an astro-modified EOS 600D, mounted on a star tracker.

Regards, Mike.

[andrew63]

I managed to view  Comet 13P Olbers tonight around midnight 25 June. In my 4" f5 at x19 and better at x33 low down in the north. Although in the brightest part of the sky, it stood out ok in a clear sky - much like a globular in appearance and not too diffuse.  Good to see another comet and it should be around for a few more weeks at around 7 magnitude. 

[mcrowle]

8 hours ago, andrew63 said:

I managed to view  Comet 13P Olbers tonight around midnight 25 June. In my 4" f5 at x19 and better at x33 low down in the north. Although in the brightest part of the sky, it stood out ok in a clear sky - much like a globular in appearance and not too diffuse.  Good to see another comet and it should be around for a few more weeks at around 7 magnitude. 

Ah, great to hear you were able to see it!

Looks like it may be clear here tonight, so I plan to give Olbers another go. Whether it's tonight or another night soon, I'll cram the Sky Watcher 80mm ED into my bag this time, and use it on the camera tripod.

Regards, Mike.

[mcrowle]

Wow, that was frustrating, still no view of Comet Olbers, despite scanning the region for an hour and a quarter with a 80mm refractor! I had been confident I would see it, especially after reading Andrew’s post.

Eventually I had to call it a night, as the comet’s location was getting very low and cloud was moving in. Anyway, referring to heavens-above.com on returning home I think I may have been concentrating my search just a little too far North. Hopefully, I’ll be able to try again shortly (and will double-check the comet’s current location first!)

Regards, Mike.

Edited June 26 by mcrowle

[andrew63]

I had a similar experience a few nights back Mike, I think sky darkness is the key. For me it was around midnight when I spotted it and suddenly it appeared!  I found Stellarium to be accurate and this is a screenshot for tonight. It's in the area of 4th mag. 31 Lyn under the foot  of Ursa Major, it might even be in the same field of view as the star tonight. It clouded over for me last night.  

[mcrowle]

Thanks, Andrew!

Looks like my next clear night may be Thursday, when Olbers will be closer still to 31 Lyn. Last night I was looking to the right of that star, while the comet was actually a few degrees below and to the right. Given I was sweeping a fairly large area, though, I'm surprised I didn't pick it up anyway. It was about 00:30 when I gave up, with cloud encroaching on the area.

Regards, Mike

[mcrowle]

Having already photographed Comet Olbers via a 135mm lens, I finally managed to see it through a ‘scope this morning - but with no further clear nights in the forecast it was a close-run thing.

The cloud was slow to clear from its location and I ended up not going to my observing spot until nearly 1am, by when the comet was barely above the horizon. Luckily the sky transparency was excellent, and Olbers was clearly visible below the star 31 Lyn via a 17mm Plossl fitted to my Sky Watcher ED 80mm (29x).

Regards, Mike

[Geoff Lister]

My Seestar S50 has been very effective in comet spotting over the last 6 months; not this time with 13P. The first challenge was to find a location in my back garden with the lowest view NW, through a gap between my garage and house, but keeping my house obscuring the LED street-lamp in the road outside.

I started at about 10:30, but the S50 was reluctant to align, even looking southwards and using Vega & Arcturus. The Skywatcher Synscan alignment is much easier with bright alpha stars than the S50 with its plate solving and a bright background.

On 28/06/2024 at 01:15, mcrowle said:

Olbers was clearly visible below the star 31 Lyn

Given that the sky was still bright towards 13P, I was able to use 31 Lyn for more accurate alignment (the S50 sky atlas was useful here), and 31 Lyn was just visible against a bright background in the middle of my tablet's screen; and then a small move to 13P. That american female voce told me that the S50 was aligned, so I started imaging, but I had over 5 minutes of "too few stars" screen messages, and nothing recorded. I then resorted to 30s frames (instead of the usual 10s), and I was able to stack 7 frames before 13P went behind my house. Just a smudge towards the bottom of of the frame.

Probably my last chance on this comet.

Geoff

[pjsmith_6198]

I saw this comet a couple of times back in mid April.  It was in Taurus then not far from the Pleiades .   Location easy to find.  It was faint but not too hard to see.  Diffuse but with condensed central condensation  visible with 10mm/7mm EPs.   Not much response to comet filter.  It was magnitude 9.7 according to theSkyLive.com.    Even then it was  only 18-19 degrees  altitude.   Just barely above the treetops .    After that, it was just too low for me to see.   

Phil

[Paul M]

This comet isn't well placed for most people, and credit to anyone who's spotted or captured it. 

I just couldn't resist showing this from YouTube imager Nico Carver: It actually about a remote imaging rig he's just set up under a world class sky. His second image is 13P. A stunning image.

Hopefully I've cued the video at the right spot. If not zoom to 15m 15 sec

 

[Geoff Lister]

I saw 13P last night with 10x50 binoculars; but I needed my Dwarf 2 to help me find it.

I was lucky that the sky was clear and that I was able to get my Dwarf 2, attached to a G-clamp photo mount, and clamped it to the painting platform of my step ladder. This put the optics at about eye-level, and with a clear view NW over an adjacent fence. It was then a case of waiting for the sky to darken sufficiently for my D2 to find enough stars to use plate-solving for calibration. The recent update of the Dwarflab's app added a sky atlas, and I used this to GoTo 13P (almost). I was lucky that the alignment was slightly off, so I was able to get a bright star (Stellarium showed it as 10 UMa, even though it forms part of Lynx) in the bottom right of the stacked image.

By using the stacked view on my tablet, I was able to stand behind the D2 with my 10x50s, find 10 UMa (about magnitude 4.8 through airmass), and then scan up-left to find the comet.

This was the image from about 220 10-second frames, as stacked in the D2, without any post-processing. The comet was visible after 5 or 6 frames. I stopped when 13P went behind adjacent scenery and the D2 stopped stacking.

Geoff

[Geoff Lister]

Last night (11th/12th) another clear sky. This was 240 10-second frames, again using my Dwarf 2 on my step ladder, showing the core's movement in an up-left direction. 42 Lyn (visually Mag. 5.8) was a good marker; and, using this to star-hop, and with my 10x50 binoculars, I think I managed to see the comet in the glow of the setting Sun. 42 Lyn is a double star, and I was pleased to see the companion just showing to the right of the main star.

Geoff

Edited July 12 by Geoff Lister
typo

[Geoff Lister]

On 29/06/2024 at 12:49, Geoff Lister said:

My Seestar S50 has been very effective in comet spotting over the last 6 months

It worked again for me last night. I was able (I think) to see the comet with my 10x50 binoculars, using the Seestar as a rough pointer, and scanning down from 2 of Ursa Major's less obvious visually magnitude (through low altitude airmass) 3.5 & 4 stars, Tania Australis (34 UMa) and Tania Borealis (33 UMa). The first image below shows an annotated copy from my tablet, with the Seestar stacking 220 off 10-second FIT images, and showing the core movement up-left. The second image, captured a little later, showa a 9 FIT stack with a more visually representative compact core.

 

Geoff