[Ian Cooper]

Hi All,

After a large mass of cirrus stratus moved over us yesterday evening I thought that this morning would be the first miss of the week. Fortunately the cirrus went as fast as it came. An absolutely stunning morning here on the Manawatu Plains, Lower North Island, west coast, New Zealand.

I got up at 2.15 a.m. local time and there was 5 degrees of tail up already! Tried a new location just NE of Levin to get the Tararua Ranges in again. No cloud to worry about this time. A couple of hiccups. A few focussing problems early on, and I didn't spot a set of power lines sweeping just above the mountain tops until twilight revealed them. By then it was too late. I hadn't checked the site out in daylight, so thems the breaks. Photoshop will remove them later.

What an awesome hour & a quarter. The tail is now nearly as long as Ikeya-Seki at its best. The only thing missing is a brilliant stellar head!The split in the end of the tail was nearly 4 degrees wide. The evenly luminous beam lower down really was like a search light beam.

The vertical picture is 1 min on ISO 800 at f/5.6. The horizontal one is 30 seconds. Canon EOS 10D.

Best of luck to you all. Keep enjoying the moment. I gotta get some shut eye soon. Only 3 hours last night, & the same again tonight. I was going to take my brothers three youngest kids shopping later today, but I think I will just give them the money and let them go for it. I couldn't really face the shopping madness right now.

Cheers, Coops.