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Went comet hunting this evening, bino's only from about 6:30pm here in Cairns.
My location in relation to Cairns city is not ideal for a NW target; still a bit light at 6:30pm but, was able to orientate myself using Arcturus & Denebola as my initial guide.
About 7pm it was dark enough & with Neowise still at about 28 degrees elevation I was able to conduct a search after hopping from star to star as I narrowed in on where I expected it to be...
And then, I saw what at first appeared to be a fleeting glance of a very diffuse globular cluster... off target & back again just to be sure I hadn't imagined it & sure enough, there it was again... fading & brightening just a fraction.. pretty confident I had found it...
Had planned to get a refractor out but, dinner.. a few random thoughts swirling around & I sort of forgot about it... it's now nearly 9pm & a quick scan of the sky failed to reveal it, I suspect it's too low for me now & it's fading into the surrounding glow of the suburb...
Anyways, my first definitive comet sighting... I went hunting for one last year, more northerly & whilst I thought I'd caught a glimpse, I'm really not that sure... this time, I'm pretty sure I saw it...
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