Vern’s Weblog

Observing conditions last night were very good except for light pollution from the full moon; the sky was clear; transpareny was very good, turbulence 6/10; temperature 57° F, and no wind. It was quite nice to be out after midnight and not need a coat!

The C fragment was easy to find visually even with light pollution from the full moon (Nexstar 11, Televue 32 mm Plossl). I could see a small portion of the tail as well. The B fragment was much harder —it was visible without averted vision but only barely.

Below is an image of the main piece, the C fragment, taken with Stellacam2 video camera, F3.3 focal reducer, and Nexstar11 scope. Approx 20 min video from 11:42 pm MDT and 00:02 MDT, gain 8/14, integrate 128 (4 sec), and gamma off.

I was interested in imaging the B fragment. “Sky and Telescope” reported a couple days ago that it was possibly disintegrating. See http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/comets/article_1704_1.asp

As you can see below the core is no longer condensed and appears elognated, it is now dimmer than the C fragment by more than half a magnitude. (Same equipment as settings as above, video captured from 0:11 MDT to 0:31 MDT, temperature 54°F).

My nights goal though was to find the “G” fragment.  I found what I thought might be it about 10 arc minutes in RA west from where the sky chart said it should be (at RA 14h 47m 16.9s, Dec +25° 12’ 38” according to the hand control).  I put some clear “PostIt” tape flags on the notebook monitor so I could see if there was any movement—and indeed there was! It is the dim fuzzy centered between the two stars near center in the below image. (Same equipment and settings as above, video from 0:42 MDT to 01:02 MDT).

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Astronomy, Comets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.