Cometblogging
Tonight was the first reasonably clear night Cleveland's had in a week, so I took a look at the heretofore hyped comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT). There was far too much ambient light for me to ever get a naked-eye view, but I did locate it with binoculars. It's just a tiny little dim blotch -- not even third magnitude, I'd guess, and if it has any tail at all, it's unrecognizable through Cleveland's light pollution. (To be fair, though haze wasn't visible, I wasn't seeing a whole lot of stars through even the binoculars.) Disappointed with the view, I hauled out the light-bucket, my 5-inch Newtonian. It took me at least fifteen minutes to get the telescope pointed at the right object, but it was clear that I had found the comet when I did -- it was very distinctly an indistinct smudge, about three times the apparent diameter of Jupiter.
Perhaps there are better views where people have access to appreciable darkness, but my experience with the comet was underwhelming (yeah, yeah, cactuswatcher). Still, I'm glad I spent the time establishing that I wouldn't have regretted not spending the time. I ended the session with a quick peek at Jupiter and two of its moons -- an old favorite, easily found.
Perhaps there are better views where people have access to appreciable darkness, but my experience with the comet was underwhelming (yeah, yeah, cactuswatcher). Still, I'm glad I spent the time establishing that I wouldn't have regretted not spending the time. I ended the session with a quick peek at Jupiter and two of its moons -- an old favorite, easily found.