As the sun set last night, I watched
the rainy skies catch fire in the west, and then watched intrigued as
the cold weather front cleared the sky, a long purple-grey to blue
divide advancing from the horizon.
I was excited. This meant clear skies
later, this meant comet hunting. Never mind the cold.
And by 2am, it was really cold. No dark
rum in the house, so I whipped up a rather crude sort of capirinha
affair with Christmas present cachaca, and headed outside.
I took a look at the moon first, a
couple of days past full, but it was a very wobbly moon as I
struggled to keep my shivery hands still. It was obviously going to
wash out decent deep sky observing, so I headed over to the non
obstructed garden view to the North-East, lifted up my binoculars to
my eyes, expecting a difficult search…
….and it was there straightaway!
I suspect without the moonlight it
would have been a much more impressive sight than it was. About half
a degree, or nearer, to a 5th mag star in the lower
reaches of the Great Bear, Comet Lovejoy was presenting as an
elongated “splodge” now rather larger and brighter looking than
Messier 13 (as I observed it a week or so ago), and again with the
sort of two distinct degrees of condensation I reported previously.
To my eyes, there was no sign of the
green colour very apparent in photographs and from other observer
reports. There was a tantalising hint of tail pointing to the
North-West, but no amount of averted vision could persuade even me I
was seeing a tail.
And no amount of cachaca would either.
So I headed inside for an impromptu fried egg sandwich and a cup of
tea, to warm me up!
Copyright Cream
Crackered Nature 19/11/13
No comments:
Post a Comment