Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Cooper
T it was too hard to tell by eye if the tail carried on. Looks like Kearn had the perfect conditions.
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Hi Coops, I am pretty rusty at comet obs! and perhaps a little slaphazard in my tail guesstimates of late, (i know i was a few degrees over last friday morning perhaps) i was just using the waving the old fist at extended arms length method
, ...i wasnt posting to proper cometobs type site, and so wasnt thinking how they might go on the permanent record and affect historical stats .. having said that .. i'm pretty happy to say the last dimmer part of the tail was visible to my eyes up to the coalsack as it climbed into darker skies, .. i dont have a planetarium program on this computer anylonger, and my charts are packed away .. but i know the FOV of my 50mm lens on that camera is about 25d, and tail is certainly longer than that, even if it isnt the brighter section of tail.. i was at nearly 36 d south in 360degree lightdome free dark skies when making obs ..
re McNaught in jan '07 , in Adelaide we had horrendous conditions during best few days of apparition ,, steelmelting heatwave, great storms, bushfires, blinding blanket bushfire smoke from victoria - it was an arsonists paradise! i am on record describing it as apocalyptic conditions back in old threads of the day, but days either side were much better
.. i'm also more of a fan of great comets being in pristine dark skies, as opposed to bright twilight, or variations on twilight, from head to tail tip preferably
