[CometGuy]

Thanks to Adam and Rob for making this such a fun trip. As the Adam mentions this was a 600 km round trip at night and I must admit I had to pull over for a catnap on the way home. However, the trip was well worth the effort!

I met up with Adam, Rob (and Tom?) at Dalby around 1am. Adam had decided to drive South-west from Dalby as it was the most direct route out of the cloud cover a strategy that paid off as we arrived at our destination to find dark clear skies with just a trace of cloud low in the east. When we arrived it was 2:25am, by which time some the tail was already visible protruding above the horizon even though comet rise was not until after 3am. The first image shown here shows us setting up at this time.

One of the highlights was watch more and more of the tail rise, and as it got higher it appeared to brighten, an effect of less atmospheric extinction. The best views of the comet came around 3:30-3:40am when the curved 20 degree long tail was now very conspicious to the naked eye. It was easily more prominent than either of the Magellanic Clouds and the brighter parts of the Milky way. At this time the ISS happened to pass to the south and I was able to capture it with the comet in a single wide angle (350D + Sigma 12-24 at 12mm f4.5) 60 second exposure which I've attached as the second image. I feel this gives a reasonable idea of the naked eye appearance of the comet.

The last image gives some idea of how the comet looked in small binoculars during the beginning of twilight. Of Note is the high intensity of tail, but the almost total lack of coma. This 8 second exposure was made with a 350D + 70-200 f2.8 non-IS L at 70mm f3.2. All images were made at ISO800.

Terry