C/2006 P1 McNaught... was: Re: [ATMoB-discuss] Re: [STMlist] WSP

[John Boudreau]

Yes, for the next few days it's still an evening object, but after that I don't think it's going to be visible from our latitude.

However, currently it's up well enough in the daytime! This afternoon I observed it with my TEC140 refractor and UO 12mm HD Ortho (~82x) between 1:30 and 2:00, and then again at about 2:45 between clouds. The nucleus was certainly starlike, and the brighter surrounds of the coma were visible. I'm not much at estimating magnitudes--- particularly in the daylight, but I've observed Mercury in the daylight in the past and the comet was easier than that.

Unfortunately the drive board of G11 mount is out for repairs, and I had to track it manually. If I had tracking, it was certainly bright enough to have recorded *something* with a webcam. Wouldn't surprise me that we'll see someone post some interesting daylight photos somewhere in a few days...
 
---John

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <valleli at rcn.com>
To: <fourthside at gmail.com>; <atmob-discuss at atmob.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 3:03 PM
Subject: Re: [ATMoB-discuss] Re: [STMlist] WSP


> Ross,
> I had set up in the parking lot of the Nokia site at the intersection of So. Bedford St. and Wayside Rd. It has about the only good eastern horizon in the town unless I climbed the water tower ( illegal) or the roof of the Marriot. I believe the area just south of Burlington Reservoir and the apartments on Peach Orchard Rd. might also be viable. Overlook Park is another possibilty but may be locked at night.
> 
> However, Dennis DiCicco who saw it just after noontime in a GoTo scope two days ago, says that it has much better placement in the western sky after sunset. 
> 
> Mitre Field has a tree problem to the west, as do most other locations. The roof of the Senior Center would be good, but again, off limits. 
> 
> I suspect your brightness reports are more accurate at 3.3 than the -1 reported in spaceweather.com, even if it was an integrated value.
> 
> We have only five or six days left and the snows are bound to start flying any day now. A stiff breeze this morning made it seem a lot colder than 32 deg.
> Dennis recommends concentrating on the evening apparitions.
> 
> Paul
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