Did anyone see 2020/F3 Neowise comet ?

[skysurfer]

I have seen it, but I'm afraid it is a northern hemisphere only object. At declination 42 North and RA about the same as the Sun it is only above the horizon in daylight.


It is now a naked eye comet (mv = 0...1), but diehards in Queensland or NT might try to find it in daylight with a larger Dobson.
In more southern states the comet is too low.

[Outcast]

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...

[Saturnine]

I did see the comet on Wednesday evening about 6:30 / 7:00 , low down in the NW in 9X60 binos. Could only see the coma , no tail, due to the suburban lights and the waxing moon. Was faint, about mag. 6 or 7.