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 -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.