I was out last night at the Astronomical Society's observing site which has good dark skies to the north. Comet Johnson was a fine sight. I was surprised by the size of the coma. The fine haze appeared to be about 30 arc mins across, if not more, with a definite gradual brightening (but still quite faint) towards the centre. Averted vision revealed a very small, almost point like central nucleus. The bright central spot and surrounding coma glowed quite clearly when moments of better seeing washed over. Best views were at 62X with seeing 4/5 and transparency 6/7.
It was the first comet sighting for a number of the people present, so a real topic of conversation on the night. We had to be patient, though, with cloud stubbornly hanging blocking our view to the north for a couple of hours.
Scope: Vixen NA140SS with LVW13 giving 62X on TRex mount.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tropo-Bob
Visible in 80mm at 30x tonight. It is moving roughly 1 degree per day.
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