So where on earth is this comet?

[JOC]

So last night it was as clear as it's been recently and we were comet watching towards the west with a decently clear horizon at round about dusk, and we didn't see the comet - should we have been able to?

[Ouroboros]

I would not have been able to spot it without a pair of binoculars. I couldn’t even see it once I knew where it was. I knew roughly where it was  from the app on my phone. I found it by identifying Arcturus as it became dark and scanning left  horizontally until I found it.  

[JOC]

I've looked at my phone and I reckon it would be better to look a little bit earlier in the evening.

[Craney]

It's the trade-off between it being at a sufficient altitude above the haze and darker skies ( when the twilight has gone)  and the fact it is getting dimmer by the day...

I found that a few second exposure on a mobile would give a hint of where it was ..... then use a bit of averted vision.

Unfortunately, you have a big Moon to contend with as well ...

 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

1 hour ago, JOC said:

So last night it was as clear as it's been recently and we were comet watching towards the west with a decently clear horizon at round about dusk, and we didn't see the comet - should we have been able to?

Easily seen in an urban area with binoculars. The simple method for me was look for Arcturus and pan left. 😃

Try again tomorrow around 1930 if your south western/ western sky is clear.

 

Edited October 18 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Dave scutt]

Could just about see it with a naked eye , binoculars was better,  phone was even better 

[JOC]

3 minutes ago, Dave scutt said:

Could just about see it with a naked eye , binoculars was better,  phone was even better

That high in the sky I should be able to see - what sort of time was that please?

[Nik271]

The comet is no longer particularly bright, I personally estimated it close to mag 4 yesterday, while various comet observer reports on cobs.si seem to average about mag 3.5 today. In my sky I struggle to see stars at mag 4 unless it is a very transparent and moonless night, which it has not been recently. Taken together it is not suprising that you haven't been able to spot it without some optical aid.

I think the best time was a short period earlier this week, Monday or Tuesday when the comet was near mag 0. Some lucky people saw it then and it must have been an easy naked eye object. But I was clouded and rained on  😞

Try with binoculars tomorrow evening around 19:30pm if it is clear.  

 

[Dave scutt]

17 minutes ago, JOC said:

That high in the sky I should be able to see - what sort of time was that please?

20.15 on Wednesday

Edited October 18 by Dave scutt

[Ags]

Hmmm, sounds much fainter than NEOWISE at this point? 

Edited October 18 by Ags

[City9Town0]

I found it easy naked-eye on Monday, OK on Wednesday, but a struggle this evening. I suspect that I will not see it naked-eye again.

[JOC]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

Hmmm, sounds much fainter than NEOWISE at this point? 

Perhaps it was Neowise that I saw some years ago.  I can recall my son and I out looking sort of NNW and right in the middle of the open was the most amazing comety comet - It was doing everything that the comet kids would draw was doing a lovely 'tail' and pin point of light at the end.  I doubt I'll ever see a better comet, but this one has enjoyed so much hype I hoped for a similar object - it would seem not.

[Mircea]

JOC

Don't have high expectations, look for something rather dim.

I'm sure you will be able to see the comet. It is observable but not the hype the media is making out of it.

 

I have seen comet Tsuchinshan first on October 15/ Habicht 7x42mm. Again on October16/ Habicht 7x42mm and today/ Norlux 10x50mm.

On all three occasions it was visible with naked eyes and  binoculars.

On 16 October, I used  also the 250mm Dobsonian when I noticed the following details:

-fan shaped head

-bright , starlike nucleus. In the Dobsonian, the nucleus was no more quite starlike. It showed a very small but visible area like a non-resolved double star.

-around the nucleus there was a thin but very bright layer. This, together with the nucleus was visible as a starlike kernel in the binoculars.

- an anti- tail very dim and slightly inclined toward South compared to the axis of the tail.

- an out-gasing on the direction of the Southern edge of coma like a extremely faint root of a second tail. This out-gasing was somewhat visible at 171x/ Svbony model 135 zoom but only with the T-Rex vision. 

- a single, considerable tail was always visible. At first two observations, the tail was at least six degree long. Today / Friday, I was able to see the tail on eight to nine degrees.

Observations from home, from the city of Arad. My sky is Bortle 7 or 18,85 mag/ square second, measured with SQM. The Moon only made things worse.

 

Good luck to all comet observers, Mircea

Edited October 18 by Mircea

[Captain Scarlet]

This comet I’ve seen for the last three days now. Wednesday it was naked eye, only just if you knew where to look, and only for a few minutes before being overcome with a creeping fog. The first photo (Tsuchinshan) overstates its visibility. The second photo (Neowise) doesn’t overstate it at all. Both with the same camera and same intent to recreate naked eye view, possibly overdone for Tsuchinshan.

I vividly recall Neowise from the same patio in July 2020. I was observing, and turned around wondering if the comet might be on view, and by comparison with Tsuchinshan, it slapped me in the face. So much so that at 0115 I risked actually phoning people to get out of bed, they all did even waking children and were grateful.

The photos below give a reasonably accurate comparison of their relative impressions, if anything understating it.

Neowise was really something special.

 

Edited October 18 by Captain Scarlet

[Ags]

I feel a bit better about my comet hunting, having seen NEOWISE at least!

[John]

I missed it last night despite being at a good location and with reasonably clear horizons.

I feel slightly better having read this thread - I thought the comet would be brighter than it actually is.

Comet Neowise was superb and an easy naked eye target for quite some time. It also brightened up an otherwise rather stressful period during the pandemic.

 

Edited October 18 by John

[JOC]

Looking at @Captain Scarlet's pictures Neowise was the one my son and I saw - sitting in the sky doing all the stuff a text book comet does.  I think we are on for wall to wall rain clouds this weekend 😞

[Paz]

I had a chance to try for this with 8x42 bins on Thursday evening in between taxi duties. My first effort at around 19.30 from a quiet village was foiled by the light domes of Coventry and Birmingham plus my own ineptitude finding the right spot. I had a second try from a nearby park at about 20.00 that had a better horizon and I took the approach of panning straight down from Vega to some nearby stars in Ophiucus and star hopping over from there.

That worked but it wasn't an easy target to find and it wasn't epically bright. It was however a clear long slim tail and a fine sight.

I had another try at 9pm from a third spot to show one of my boys, but we couldn't find it, it was very low by then.

Edited October 19 by Paz

[Mr Spock]

Went out to a dark sky area tonight. Glimpsed it visually - I'd say close to mag 6. Very difficult to pick up.

Better with a camera...

[900SL]

Saw it with binos a couple of nights ago, hard to spot, like a chalk smudge

Pointed the camera at roughly where it should be tonight (not naked eye visible) and got this on the second attempt, fishing around. Lots of high cloud here so lucky to see anything

 

[DaveS]

Behind the cloud, even when the sky is supposed to be clear.

[JOC]

So I couldn't find that diamond shaped set of stars and the bright one to look left from, and was running very tight on time for an appointment so ran up to the gate, looked left and tried a whole series of shots handheld with the phone on night mode.  I've just checked and have one possibility.  Do you think it's in this one.  There are two larger trees in the middle of the frame to the right of the right hand one about half way up the sky that is in frame.  Could that be the comet?  'Tail' showing at about centre to 10 o'clock.  Is it in the right place?

Edited October 19 by JOC

[Elp]

8 minutes ago, JOC said:

Is it in the right place?

Looks like it's there.

When looking for it today myself, the easiest thing to do is find where the sun's set (IE west), then up to Arcturus and sweep left. It really isn't difficult to see the brightest stars in the sky, maybe wait until the sun's gone down a bit more (you can always see the stars better with a photo taken on a fixed tripod/resting against something and photo taken with a timed delay to eliminate camera shake). For me, it would have been just below some housing rooflines, so I can't see it without going somewhere with a better horizon.

[JOC]

8 minutes ago, Elp said:

Looks like it's there

Then it's higher in the sky and a slightly more to the right than I was expecting, but yay!! :-)

[John]

The stars look to be in the right positions relative to the comets position this evening - I used those to star hop to the comets position earlier. 

It was higher than I expected but somewhat dimmer. 

Glad I got a look at it though. The skies clouded over shortly after we observed it with binoculars and then my 85mm refractor. My other half needed to use the scope to be sure that she had seen it !