[AZ-Observing] 103P/Hartley
- From: Jeremy Perez <jeremy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 02:45:17 -0700
Although it isn't as bright as hoped, comet Hartley is still an
enjoyable telescopic target. Clouds from the today's thunderstorms
cleared up enough over Flagstaff that I was able to spend some time
with it while brilliant flashes of lightning decorated the southern
horizon. At low power (37.5X) through the 8 inch Dob, it appeared
large with a diffuse coma that faded smoothly to the background. The
portion I was able to see was about 20 arc minutes in diameter. When
examined at higher power, the core appeared to have a very faint,
stellar point that flickered in and out with the seeing. I'm pretty
sure I had this distinguished from field stars as it seemed to hold
its own as the comet moved across the field. The number of field
stars did make it difficult to assess any elongation, so I was unable
to pick up on either a foreshortened dust or ion tail. I did not
detect any color. The comet moved about 4 arc minutes to the
northeast over the course of 75 minutes from 10:45 pm to midnight.
I followed up with a look through 15 x 70 binoculars. It is currently
situated in a tangle of 8th and 9th magnitude stars, so it's a little
difficult to distinguish it from the light of these stars. Its soft
glow actually makes the area look like a partially resolved open
cluster. I had to make a couple trips back and forth to the computer
to be sure I was in the right spot and wasn't actually confusing it
with an open cluster.
Thanks for the reports, and JD for that incredible photo with NGC
281--Wow!
The labeled sketch can be found here:
http://www.beltofvenus.net/archives/001445.html
Jeremy Perez
Flagstaff, AZ
http://www.beltofvenus.net
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