Viewed Comet ISON with the 12-inch Dob from rouughly 5:45 to 6:20AM CDT. Conditions were full moon, morning twilight, and wind gusting to 30 mph. Temperature is surprisingly high at 61 degrees F. At 50x the coma was very small, condensed, and much brighter to center. A narrow tail extended at least 20 to the west. The out of focus image was much brighter than either of two bright stars that could be fit into the field. The brighter turns out to be LP Virginis (magn = 6.9). The comet must be at least one magnitude brighter, but probably not quite two magnitudes. Comet could just barely be seen through the finder. At 75x a very faint outer portion of the coma could be seen. It was about as wide as the separation of the two stars north of the comet. Guide 9.0 calculates their separation as just over 3. Striations suspected in tail. Patch in tail? At 182x observing was difficult due to the wind buffetting the telescope. Despite increasing twilight, the tail still could be seen to at least 15. There does seem to be a small, diffuse patch about 10 from the coma within the tail. It is oval and angled about 60 degrees to the tail. Unsure if this is a feature in the tail or unresolved background stars showing through. Might even be an optical artifact due to twilight conditions.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:41:24 +0000
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