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Tail 26 degrees, maybe 34?
Hi all,
thanks to all the contributors who have been wetting my cometery appetite whilst the sky has been wetting the ground here for the past 5 days!
It looked promising at dusk for me to finally get a chance at doing some very long exposures on our trusty tracking mount (it was used to photograph The Great Comet of 1970, Comet Bennett, by its original owner). So I hit the sack at 11 p.m. Set the alarm for moonset at 1.30a.m. I was awoken by what I thought was someone ringing my landline in the lounge at 12.30 a.m. I didn't get to the phone in time, so I went outside to find the only part of the sky that was clear was to my north east.
It didn't look at all promising at home so I loaded up the car and headed up State Highway 1 that runs up the guts of the North Island. I ended up doing a round trip of about 110 km's, but it was worth it. I actually went up on a side road that I was meant to take almost 5 years ago on a similar weather pattern when we were chasing McNaught's tail. On that night I ended up leading us down a blind valley after missing the correct turnoff by 600m! By the time that I got out the other end of the valley half of McNaught's tail was set!! Not this time though.
The spot I chose was an elevated view away from the highway on a quiet rural road. I tell you, if I hadn't known the comet was there I would easily have mistaken it as just an outlying stretch of the Milkyway, if I had noticed it at all. To both the naked-eye and binos the tail's brightness varied considerably along its length. The first 5 degrees by Atria were fairly easy to see. The next 5 weren't, then up by Musca it was bright again up to the border of Musca and Carina.
That was initially as far as I thought the tail went. After sweeping across that end and re-assessing it with the unaided-eye I think that the tail may have reached into the middle of the Diamond Cross. It was hard case because I had to blot out the light of the Eta Carina region with my hand so that I could concentrate on detecting the end of the tail!
I took 10 one minute subs, and 11 thirty second subs before cloud closed in around me. All were taken with the Canon 10D, 35mm, f/4.5, 800 iso. Included are two of the 30 second shots that picked up a very bright Iridium flare. I have done a little photo-shopping on these frames to reveal something of what I saw.
I'll be passing on my sub frames to my mate Stephen Chadwick who has the gear and the ability to make something from my efforts this morning.
If I hadn't woken early as I did, then I am sure that I wouldn't have been so keen to drive north from what I saw when I got home. Maybe I just imagined the phone call in my sleep? I am a happy chappy either way.
Best of luck to all of you.
Cheers,
Coops
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