Comet C/2007 Q3 Siding Spring

[DarkerSky]

Just before moonrise late yesterday evening I managed to bag my first comet in the eyepiece since Christensen last September. Comet C/2007 Q3 Siding Spring is currently making its way through northern Bootes towards Draco. It is in fact on its way out of the solar system after reaching perihelion 7 October 2009. At 2.3 AU from Earth it is rather small - a challenge to find at magnitude 10.8.

But find it I did! A combination of Heavens Above and stellarium wiggled around on my laptop to match the orientation of the sky , and the lightbucket that is my 16", I caught the faintest of suspects in my widefield 26mm eyepiece. Switching up to a 17mm eyepiece to give x107 mag I made a positive id.

The comet appeared as a very small wisp of light with a slight elongation to it, oriented roughly SE / NW. Fighting the rising moon and the neighbour's security light popping on and off I managed to get down what I could in a sketch.

The challenge for you guys and gals is to spot the wisp of light that is the comet in the sketch ...

[brianb]

Well spotted Sir, and an excellent sketch giving a really good impression of what a faint(ish) comet looks like at the eyepiece.