Lemmon at last!

[LewisM]

After more than a week of frustratingly poor nights here in SE QLD, I grabbed the 12x50 Leupold binoculars tonight to try looking for it in the suckerholes.

Found it without much hassle. NICE and bright, larger than I expected, with a definite visible tail even in Light Pollution central.

This was my real first light with these binos, and I am impressed! Turned them on Jupiter, and CLEARLY saw 5 visible moons and some banding, all against a perfectly inky sky. Tried M42 next, and was NOT disappointed!

These were on trial-purchase from a shop friend of mine, and will most assuredly be keeping them. At only 12x50, they aren't ideal astro binos, but they are LIGHT, perfectly balanced and have SUPERB clarity (as only I would expect from Leupold, even if made in China - probably Synta :) )

[barx1963]

Hey Lewis, well done one Lemmon. It is a nice comet, getting the tail in binos is excellent.
Just one small point. The fifth moon you saw is most likely a background star. The 5th largest moon of Jupiter is (from memory) Himalia which is about 170kms wide, mo matter how good your binos, unlikely with 50mm aperture!

Malcolm

[LewisM]

It's hard to tell when your binos are waving around ;) Near zenith with handheld binos is not much fun :)

[dan_b85]

So here in Perth where should I be looking and what time?

Thanks jn advance dan :)

[Scorpius51]

If you have Stellarium, update the comet data and do a search. It's SW of 47 Tuc.

[dan_b85]

Aww thanks will do

[Weltevreden SA]

Comet Lemmon is brighter and larger than I expected—only marginally smaller and fainter than 47 Tuc. Too much moon (77%) to see it visually, but spotted it easily in 15x70 binocs last night (Feb 19), tracked it for an hour in a 180mm f/10 Mak in between clouds & transparency no better than 2/5. Tonight in post-cold front breezy but clear 4 out of 5 skies it's outstanding in a 200mm Mak f/12 up to 300x, and none too shabby in a 100mm f/6 achro at 28x. Moves fast, too. In five mins its position changed noticeably against a field of 5th to 8th mag stars. The halo brightens evenly to a bright tiny core about the same brightness as 47 Tuc's core. The tail, alas, is nothing to send up flares about. Better in binocs, but still pretty tepid compared with that core. It's much brighter than Gerradd two years ago. Given its performance tonight you should be able to pick it out even in full-moon night.

[mithrandir]

Stellarium is using the magnitude estimates from MPC, not the most recent values you would get from JPL. I have it showing as mag ~4.8. In your ssystem.ini file (should be in your %appdata%\Stellarium\data directory), find the section for the comet and change the two relevant lines:

absolute_magnitude = 5.1
slope_parameter = 17

Mine reads:

[c2012f6(lemmon)]
parent = Sun
orbit_Inclination = 82.6078
coord_func = comet_orbit
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.998531
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 304.9874
absolute_magnitude = 5.1
name = C/2012 F6 (Lemmon)
slope_parameter = 17
lighting = false
tex_map = nomap.png
color = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
orbit_AscendingNode = 332.7147
albedo = 1
radius = 5
orbit_PericenterDistance = 0.731246
type = comet
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2456376.0137963

[REVEREND]

Deleted...

[REVEREND]

Deleted...

[callingrohit]

Hi lewis,

Where did you purchase the binos from ?

[LewisM]

You won't like the price...$600

Seriously worth it though - I shunned off binos for YEARS after having a sucessive run of sub-par stuff touted as fantastic. These binos are SUPERB, with actually very good colour correction etc.

Kingaroy Firearms is my mate that sells them. His number is 0741 624833. Just mention Lewis suggested them :)

[ZeroID]

Too low and too light in the early evening for me now. I can pick it up in the binos just and can see a hint of tail but by the time it is dark enough to photograph it it is too low amongst the twinkle and LP glow. And the Ob wall gets in the way !
Guess I've seen the last of Lemmon.