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Old 20-03-2014, 11:22 PM
Rob_K
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Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques)

Tonight I was imaging this newly-discovered comet and I dragged my little reflector out on the off-chance I might be able to see it. And I could see the comet despite less-than-perfect dark adaption and the faintest flush of moonlight creeping into the sky! Very excited. It was right at the limit of vision, showing as a roughly circular diffuse patch about 1-arcminute in diameter. There was no sign of any central condensation. The seeing was quite poor and it was very faint - I found I couldn't hold it for more than a second or two at a time. 4.5" f8 reflector, 21mm eyepiece (43x). I've attached a rough eyepiece sketch (reflector view, rotated 180-deg).

Worth a look if you've got dark skies and preferably a bigger scope! It's the brightest comet in evening skies at the moment, very well placed for southern viewers. Latest visual observation has it at m1=10.7. But remember, that's for a diffuse object reported at 3-arcminutes diameter, nothing like a mag 10.7 star! The comet may reach mag 7 or brighter later in the year if it is confirmed as a 'return visitor'. I think the north get the best of it at its brightest though.

Funny, high mag 10s seems to be about the limit for my scope with diffuse comets, although I've seen a few fainter, highly-condensed ones. But I can see globular clusters with given magnitudes of well into the mag 11s, and I've been able to make out a few mag 12+ galaxies with this scope.

There are a couple of morning comets currently brighter than mag 10, C/2012 X1 (LINEAR) and C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) but the Moon is inhibiting views at the moment. Also in the morning, C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS) is brightening, currently reported in the mag 11s.

Cheers -
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  #2  
Old 21-03-2014, 11:27 AM
Rob_K
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Here's the image, cropped at half-scale from the full frame. The comet is moving fairly fast and this is a composite made from two stacks of the 12 subs I took, one on the comet head and one on the stars. The comet position shown is a nominal point on the short arc of movement between first and last subs.

Anyway, well worth a look if you've got dark skies and you get the scope out over the weekend. The ephemeris is here, ignore the m1 predictions as it is much brighter visually.
http://scully.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bi...d=c&o=CK14E020

Cheers -
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  #3  
Old 23-03-2014, 08:50 PM
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Paddy (Patrick)
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Thanks Rob, hope to have a look soon!
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Old 24-03-2014, 08:20 AM
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JohnG (John)
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Here ya go Patrick, from Saturday night (22.03.14)

Cheers
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