Kurt and I rendezvoused at Little Mountain at about 5:00 am and were greeted by a star-spangled sky, with the exception of some ragged cloud strands to the south that were slowly drifting northeast, right over the target zone (of course). They never totally obscured the area, but it got a bit fuzzy for a while. Venus was dazzlingly brilliant- Kurt pointed-out a glare reflection off of ground ice that was startlingly bright. Kurt was using his binos, I had my 15x70mm binos and the 4.25" f/5 Dob, with 20mm Erfle ep for 27X and a reasonably wide field. I had mounted the Mars-eye finder earlier yesterday and was eager to try it out on the scope. Nice reflex sight, I found myself using the green dot at a low intensity. The thin, transient cloud cover and low elevation (atmospheric extinction) made star identification difficult, and even after we were sure the comet was above the horizon it wasn't apparent. Then at almost the same instant, we realized we were looking in the wrong place, and swung over to the correct position, where the comet was instantly seen. I estimated a coma size of about 3 arc minutes, I think I remember Kurt giving it another minute or two. My eyes had began to water by then and protracted views were getting difficult. It was dimmer than I had expected, but once located, an obvious object. The impression in the little Dob was similar to a small spherical galaxy seen in a larger instrument. This comet is nothing spectacular and is only going to get dimmer in coming days, albeit higher at the start of twilight. But I'm glad I went up there, the sky was spectacular, Jupiter was amazing in the small scope. Even though the light pollution has taken a toll on the Little Mountain site, it still holds up remarkably well for being so close to SLC. The skies to the east are still the best, fortunately for morning comet watchers. The temperature wasn't too bad thanks to the warm spell we are currently enjoying- it was much colder when I was up there shooting Hale-Bopp in '97. A Sunday morning well-spent. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com