Hartley in two instruments.

[ollypenrice]

Since the Tak 85 wasn't on imaging duty we had a look at the comet in it. Lovely! It was very easy and just showed in the 50mm finder - very 'just,' be it said. The tiny stars and black background made the comet quite contrasty though it was transparent looking and showed no nucleus.

Moving up to a slightly larger aperture (0.5 metre) an elongated nucleus was visible but the cloudy look of the comet remained. It really looked more like a nebula than a comet to me since even the nucleus looked tenuous. Strange but vey attractive.

Personally I went back to the little refractor after a while but all in all a decent observation.

Olly

[NickH]

Olly, the coma is >30 arcmins at the mo, so no wonder it looks like a nice planetary neb. We're not looking too hot for tonight in the UK, so stick the 4000 on it in full colour, and see what you can get!

[brianb]

Personally I went back to the little refractor after a while

I agree Olly, I was using the cheapo 80mm f/6 achromat (x24) which I use for brightish variables & preferred the view in that to my 11" SCT x70. Not that there was anything wrong with the SCT, except that the image scale was too big to show the full extent of the coma properly. 10x50 bins worked well but the 80mm frac was better.

I found I could see the comet quite clearly even in tiny (4x20) binoculars ... and the Double Cluster looked "odd" to the naked eye - a bit brighter than usual and bloated ... I'm sure it was the comet that was causing this, even though I was not able to distinguish the comet as such with the NE; it would probably have been easier in a less busy part of the sky.

For an indication of sky transparency / darkness, M33 was just barely visible to the NE, I certainly wouldn't have been able to see it without knowing exactly where to look (with averted vision and 2 hours dark adaptation).

[russ]

Ditto for us too. We found the comet looked better in a widefield setting with some background stars. The smaller widefield instruments gave a nicer look. And it does look like a Planetary Neb. Weather is looking decidedly iffy for tonight now.

[NickH]

Visually now with the TMB on a 32mm EP it's nice, but when I had the 12" Dob at F5 with a 40mm EP, it was wonderful. (That went to Spain this last weekend)

[russ]

I was hoping to give the 12" dob a try tonight with a nice low power widefield eyepiece. Still giving clear for midnight, so may yet get the chance.

Nick, I imagine the skies in Spain are stunning?

[NickH]

Russ, yes they are...there's an image I took of Orion last October, which just blew me away in terms of just how good the skies were, the nebulosity was staggering, and visually we were seeing so much with the 14" Intes out there

[A McEwan]

I observed the comet with my ED120 at 69x and was able to detect the brighter nucleus and (with averted vision) a slight fan-shape to the coma. Can anyone else confirm this?

Ant

[NickH]

Coma indeed has a slight fan shape, so good one!

[A McEwan]

Great, thanks Nick. Evident tonight too, same instrument and magnification.

[NickH]

Coma is now >1 degree according to Deep Impact

[Peter Drew]

Comet Hartley in 3 INSTRUMENTS! the last night/morning of my Tenerife trip, 4.30 am swept up with 10x50's followed by 25x102 and then C8 x50. Best view in 25x102 which have 90 degree angled eyepieces, the 10x50's were neckbreaking at that latitude. Good in 10x50's back in UK this morning at 5.00 am, certainly shifts!

[RichieJarvis]

I saw it Friday night Olly - thats about all I can say It was faint n fuzzy.....

It is a very ethereal sight though....