Hi Terry,
wow! thats very interesting!! excellent and examplary obs as usual!
Stewart's exclaimed straight away woah! thats an easy mag 0 on the 10 or so degrees of the earlier naked eye vertical eminating from the blazing head! *at an immediate impression level* and I agreed, altho I couldnt believe that to be true!, so thought maybe between 0 and +2 as a conservative value, but after reading your much more thorough examination of total brightness (ours was done very roughly on the fly between clouds and wiping seasalt? and rain from our face)
I also agree wholeheartedly the mid wider/higher section of the non stem tail, roughly, was much brighter than the milky way!!, as you mentioned ina an earlier report from friday/thursday?
btw the main straighter defined tail, stemming from the head (that started at around NE 10+d ) and reached over NE 30d in height (EDIT:from the horizon -Stewart dexcribed as a 'searchlight' agreed - altho the last 20 d wasnt as bright as the first 10d of course) by the time we left!!! - keeping its straight appearence and only arcing at the top - that was a very unusual sight experience indeed! it just kept filling in the in the growing arc!!
edit: hmmm just thinking, we thought the head was still much brighter than the first part of the tail still!? just our impression tho - not exactly proper obs