[AZ-Observing] Comets on Thursday night

Jack Jones and I were at Eagle Eye road on Thursday night and had lots =
of
fun with the two bright comets.  I gave the night a 6 for seeing and a 7 =
for
transparency between the Moon setting and the clouds moving in.

Comet Tuttle is in Cepheus, moving toward Cassiopeia.  I found it with =
the
8X42 binoculars and it was pretty faint and pretty large in the =
binoculars.
It did have a very prominent central core, however.  Moving up to the ED =
80
with a 14mm UWA eyepiece made for a much better observation.  It is =
about
8th magnitude and 20 arcminutes in size.  The bright core is easy at =
this
power and the edges of this round comet are somewhat ragged. =20

Comet Holmes is still a showpiece.  It is easily naked eye, even with =
the
three day old Moon across the sky from it.  It is still brighter than =
either
the Double Cluster or the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye, a =
fascinating
sight.

In the ED 80 with a 27mm eyepiece it is the central 60% of the field of
view, a WOW view.  The "jellyfish" shape is still prominent with a =
brighter
central spike or spine that is almost the length of the comet.  There =
are 14
stars involved within the comet.  Averted vision makes it larger and =
shows
off the center spike more easily.  This is the perfect scope for this =
comet.

Moving way up in aperture, using Jack Jones 20 inch Newtonian, the comet
will not fit in the field, but it is certainly fun to move the scope =
around
and view the individual fields at 100X.  The central spine feature is =
really
easy and stands out well from the rest of the comet glow.  There is a =
tiny
pseudonucleus with the big scope, it is about 13th magnitude.

These two comets made for a great night;
Steve Coe

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