Kurt it's nice to know that I wasn't alone this morning in the cold! After coming home from work I wanted to view the comet but it was overcast so I tried again around 3:20am and to my amazement it was clear and beautiful. The only clouds were some high thin clouds that stayed around the Moon for the hour+ I was outside, and under Orions feet obscuring most of Canis Majoris. I haven't been able to really get a good look at this comet since it brightened besides a few quick peeks from the front yard in my 7x35 binos I keep in the car as I've gotten home from work. This past weekend was clouded out so this morning was the first chance I've had to pull out the 15x70mm bino's and get a good look-and WOW!! There is no mistaking this for a comet it's really big, nuch more so than I had expected. it's core seems to be a bit off center but hard to tell with handheld binos, I couldn't use the tripod since it was practically straight overhead at the time. I really need to make a parallelogram mount-Chuck where are you?? Anyways I spent way too long outside (4:35am) taking shots of it with my digital camera. I rigged up my 20mw green laser pointer to point it out on a few pics and I've posted those on my UtahAstronomy gallery page.http://gallery.utahastronomy.com/v/Howardj/?g2_page=3 The moon was covered by clouds but still managed to wash out my pictures but the close up shots with the camera at full zoom, a whopping 4x clearly shows that it's a fuzz ball and not a star. I'll echo Kurts comments on its appearance compared to M42. It was nice to finally get out under some starlight! Can't wait for a chance to see this with the 10" scope. --- Kurt Fisher <fisherka@csolutions.net> wrote:

This morning at 1:30am and again at 5:30am, I took a quick look at Comet 17P between cloud banks and high cirrus layer clouds. Between urban light pollution, cloud extinction and a third quarter moon, no detail could be seen. However, 17P's size and brillance were unmistakable under these poor observing conditions. The diffuse coma was slightly smaller than the radius of the Moon (15 arcmins) but larger than the Great Orion nebula (M42) as seen in light polluted skies (10'). My best guess is a dia. of 13 arcmins. This large diffuse coma was 1 to 2 magnitudes brighter than M42. - Kurt

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