Last night finally gave some decent skies, so I ventured out into my backyard on the West Mountain to take a peek at Comet Lovejoy(even though it was -15°). The comet is now visible to the naked eye even from moderately light polluted skies, and I imagine from a dark sky site it would look fantastic. The comet is moving higher and higher into the sky, and already has dropped below magnitude +5. Through my 10″ Dobsonian, the comet was certainly a treat. The coma is quite large and fades nicely into the background sky, while the nucleus is small, stellar and bright. A hint of a tail can even be seen running east from the nucleus (although it could just be averted imagination – more observations are needed to be sure). The picture below is an inverted sketch I made of Lovejoy last night – mainly from memory and a very rough initial sketch as I wasn’t willing to sit at the eyepiece for 45 minutes drawing at that temperature. I encourage anyone who can to go outside and take a peek at the comet through their scopes and binos, and at very least try and find it with the naked eye – here is a link to Sky and Telescope giving locations and descriptions!
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