Comet 2007 E2 (Lovejoy) - Page 2

ballaratdragons (Ken) · #21 23-04-2007, 11:11 PM

Eric (Erick) and I spent considerable time Friday night (sat morning 2 - 3am) trying to find Comet Lovejoy using the information supplied in here, with no luck. We even scanned the wider areas of the whole of Aquila, lower Sagittarius and surrounds.

We located the exact spot it was meant to be on the 20th, with 8" and 12" dobs, and several sizes of binocs. Seeing was 8-9/10, transparency was 9-10/10, light pollution 0/10, so there's no reason why we couldn't see it. We even triple and quadruple checked the star maps!

erick (Eric) · #22 23-04-2007, 11:40 PM

'Twas disappointing. We couldn't work out why we couldn't locate it??

Rob_K · #23 24-04-2007, 12:29 AM

Don't know guys. I saw it on the night of 13/14 April and it was exactly where Starry Night plotted it to be. Very dim in my scope, a lot dimmer than I thought it would be, but I was excited just to get a visual on it. Didn't McNaught spoil us?

Cheers -

glenc (Glen) · #24 24-04-2007, 03:06 AM

Here is the RA and dec at 4am AEST from Guide 8.0.
Comet Lovejoy is heading north and will only be visible for a couple of weeks more.
Delta is the distance from earth in au.

erick (Eric) · #25 24-04-2007, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glenc

Here is the RA and dec at 4am AEST from Guide 8.0.
It is heading north and will only be visible for a couple of weeks more.
Delta is the distance from earth in au.

Thanks Glen, I'll try again.

ian musgrave · #26 25-04-2007, 12:36 AM

Comet Lovejoy will be at its brightest over the next few days (but not very bright, around mag 7.5). I have some high resolution charts here
http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2007/04/comet-e2-lovejoy-at-its-brightest-this.html
to help people catch it as it speeds through Aquilla. It will only be a fuzzy dot though. Right now it is close to Zeta Aquilae, so it should be esy to catch.

Cheers! Ian

glenc (Glen) · #27 29-04-2007, 05:53 AM

Found Comet Lovejoy with 20x80 binos and looked at it with my 10" dob this morning, it was about 10 degrees above Vega at 4am . It was also visible in my 50mm finder. I could see it moving, using the 10", over a period of about 30 mins but I could not detect a tail. It will be 7.5 degrees from Vega tomorrow.

glenc (Glen) · #28 30-04-2007, 05:53 AM

Looked at Terry's comet with my 12" dob this morning at 115x. It was extended on one side (SW) but I couldn't really see a tail. It was also visible in my 50mm finder. The moon will be a problem for the next week or so.