Comet C/2006 W3 (Christensen) revisited

[Talitha]

Almost 5am, what a drop-dead gorgeous sky tonight!

I visited an old friend, W3 Christensen. It's brighter than it was last November and still looks like an unresolved globular cluster. There's no tail, but the nucleus and coma (core and outer glow) are bright and an easy enough target. I'm kicking myself for not bringing the 11x70s along, because the Sky Tools program lists the 3.5' comet as being a mag 8.7, which gives it a surface brightness of mag 20.1.

Still plenty of time to see this one. It'll be at its' brightest (mag 7.9) on August 11th when it's in VUL, and ought to be a nice warm weather target as it's skimming the Milky Way in the area of the Summer Triangle.