I think the best time to see the comet is from this weekend onwards. Pick a clear day! It will obviously be fading quickly but climbing higher into a dark sky. I have been watching the STEREO H1 raw videos and the dust tail has grown to close to 10 degrees, so we may soon see a faint streak of tail pointing up out from the morning twilight.
Congratulations Terry on discovering a very cool comet! Sounds like it's been a rollercoaster of the best kind for you over the past few weeks. Seeing how bright it was as it left LASCO, we can hope it might yet put on a show in the morning sky. Could be painful getting up that early though! And with luck the little piece of ice that forever has your name attached to it will last forever... or at least until the next time it approaches the Sun...
Hi to our Aussie mates across the ditch. My long time observing buddy Noel Munford and I started observing before comet rise here on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. Conditions were almost ideal. A cloud bank sat over the mountains to the east of us up to 3.5 degrees high.
Using bino's I could follow the tail stars of Scorpius down to Epsilon Sco. We saw Antares rise, then Mercury, which from our latitude of 40 south should have been lower than the predicted position of the comet. Still no sign of a tail or head.
Suddenly at 16.00 hrs U.T. (5.00 a.m. N.Z.D.T.) about 45 mins before local sunrise. I was sure that I could see a thin segment of tail arcing up in p.a. 120 degrees (11 o'clock to the horizon). My mate Noel wasn't sure at all. He took a photo which he has since re-worked in photoshop without revealing anything that looks like what I am certain I saw.
The twilight was very bright and by that time the head of the comet should have been about 30' above the cloud bank. I had another look through the binos after Noel and confirmed my earlier observation. There was no sign of a nucleus! We packed it in about 20 mins after my first sighting of the tail.
Conclusions. Either we packed up too early and the head was still behind the cloud bank (not likely going by the predicted position in relation to Mercury and the stars of Scorpius in the vicinity), or the tail is now the only part of the comet readily visible in bright twilight!
There was 86 years of observing experience standing on my rural driveway this morning, observing in close to ideal conditions, and yet we didn't sight the comet's head, and only one of us was sure that we could see the tail!
Best of luck over there. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I'm afraid It isn't looking good at the moment.
Hi to our Aussie mates across the ditch. My long time observing buddy Noel Munford and I started observing before comet rise here on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. Conditions were almost ideal. A cloud bank sat over the mountains to the east of us up to 3.5 degrees high.
Using bino's I could follow the tail stars of Scorpius down to Epsilon Sco. We saw Antares rise, then Mercury, which from our latitude of 40 south should have been lower than the predicted position of the comet. Still no sign of a tail or head.
Suddenly at 16.00 hrs U.T. (5.00 a.m. N.Z.D.T.) about 45 mins before local sunrise. I was sure that I could see a thin segment of tail arcing up in p.a. 120 degrees (11 o'clock to the horizon). My mate Noel wasn't sure at all. He took a photo which he has since re-worked in photoshop without revealing anything that looks like what I am certain I saw.
The twilight was very bright and by that time the head of the comet should have been about 30' above the cloud bank. I had another look through the binos after Noel and confirmed my earlier observation. There was no sign of a nucleus! We packed it in about 20 mins after my first sighting of the tail.
Conclusions. Either we packed up too early and the head was still behind the cloud bank (not likely going by the predicted position in relation to Mercury and the stars of Scorpius in the vicinity), or the tail is now the only part of the comet readily visible in bright twilight!
There was 86 years of observing experience standing on my rural driveway this morning, observing in close to ideal conditions, and yet we didn't sight the comet's head, and only one of us was sure that we could see the tail!
Best of luck over there. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I'm afraid It isn't looking good at the moment.
Cheers
Coops
Thank you for the report Coops. I have better references now for my photo session next morning. My model is a little elusive but it's full of joy and love .
Comets are like a box of chocolate, maybe this one will never be visible with the naked eye, maybe it puts a show, I have no idea but what can I lose trying?
Keep trying all is still quite low in the east. All very exciting as to what will happen over the next 5 days or so?? Am working the next 2 mornings though, bugger.
I made the supreme effort an was up at 3.30am (i went to bed at 2am)
No luck in spotting the comet with binos. Though it may have been behind that one static cloud that just hangs there for the entire observing session. LOL
If it's clear tomorrow morning, I'll give it another go.
I made the supreme effort an was up at 3.30am (i went to bed at 2am)
No luck in spotting the comet with binos. Though it may have been behind that one static cloud that just hangs there for the entire observing session. LOL
If it's clear tomorrow morning, I'll give it another go.
I thought it was only against me but now I see that cloud extends all the way from Australia to Argentina. That's a heck of a cloud!
When i looked yday, there was a bit of cloud in the east that got worse as dawn approached. Always seems to be a bank of cloud low in the east, and in my case Scorpious is rising right over the glow of city lights in Townsville.
I guess that I was just a bit disappointed with the magnitude drop-off. Going by the photo from Tassie on Spaceweather I think that the cloud layer stopped us from seeing the comet on the horizon, which was our best chance to get decent contrast this morning.
Tomorrow will be an improved view but from Thursday morning onwards the tail may stretch out against the darker sky, even if the coma remains faint.
We may have been spoilt somewhat by the appearance of McNaught 5 years ago, and the lack of naked-eye comets in the interim certainly doesn't help. Hopes that this would be a fine comet of mag +1 to 2 have dropped back to it being a good naked-eye comet of mag +3 to 5 with a nice tail.
The photo taken this morning confirm my observation and prove that I wasn't suffering from Martian Canal Syndrome!
Still waiting for clear skies in Melbourne but hopeful over the next few days. It's probably worth remebering that this was thought to be a pretty tiny object, and it's remarkable that it's survived at all! The daylight observations suggest it's still reasonably bright, hopefully it'll get high enough quick enough?