Current Brightest comet

rlow · Post by **rlow** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:08 pm

Is the redline the tail direction of the comet?

Yang Beng, once (if) I see the tail, I will let you know....Haha!

Post by **weixing** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:14 pm

Hi,

Is the redline the tail direction of the comet?

Yes.

Have a nice day.

starfinder · Post by **starfinder** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:38 pm

After many cloudy nights in the past few days, it was a relatively clear evening today at last in Singapore.

I therefore tried to view this Comet.

I used my Meade LX-90 8" goto scope, and generated highly accurate ephemerides from the Minor Planet Center website:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemeri ... 6VZ13.html
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html

I compared nearby mag 8 to 10 star patterns on a planetarium software (The Sky) and am quite certain that I was looking at the right place.

However, I was not able to visually observe the comet, after about 20 minutes of swishing the view about. The Comet is therefore quite dim. It is even dimmer than the appearance of a mag 8 star racked out of focus slightly, which I could still see. I could even visually see mag 10 stars in focus.

So much for C/2006 VZ13, at least from sunny and light polluted Singapore. Thanks anyway to everyone for this story lead!

Hopefully a whopper will soon enter our neighbourhood of the solar system.

Canopus Lim · Post by **Canopus Lim** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:00 am

Just now I tried searching for the comet with my 12.5" and after searching for a long time I gave up. I think the surface brightness is too low to be that easy to spot. The sky was not that clear too especially the light polluted north. I also did not have a very detailed map. Or maybe my starhopping not that good.

I spent the rest of my time looking at M22, M13. M22 looked great and is my favourite glob. M13 also looked nice. Both of them highly resolved. I observed Jupiter for the remaining time. The seeing was above average and at moments it was not bad. Lots of details on Jupiter especially on the South Equitorial belt. It was so intricate with many swirls, ovals etc. GRS was visible for awhile. Later at 11 plus, there was a row of probably 5 to 6 white ovals spaced out quite evenly at the southern side and again many intricate cloud bands at the equitorial region. It was nice.

Post by **Airconvent** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:57 am

I also did a quick attempt with my Bino when I reached home just now but no luck too. Although I did not see any clouds due south, neither can I see ursa major! (looks like high altitude clouds). I used arcturus as a guide and did 5min of sweeping but nothing....sigh....