I found this comet in Cassiopeia the other night (August 24) near the colourful double star Struve 3053 and thought it made a nice composition. As I observed over the course of an hour I was surprised to see how quickly the comet moved against the background stars from the position I first sketched it at 11:15 local time to the position indicated by the X at about 12:10. The observations were made with a 120mm F/8.3 refractor at 42x in a 68 degree eyepiece from my Orleans, Ontario backyard.
* Object Name: C/2014 E2 (Jacques)
* Object Type: comet
* Location: Castres (Tarn – France) N43.35 E2.14
* Date: August 27th 2014 21h35 to 22h55 UT
* Media: pencil HB + 2B, white drawing paper, scanned + inverted & colorized with PhotoPaint
Conditions: humidity 80%, 18°C, no wind.
Excellent transparency and pretty good seing
No Moon
Equipment:
– Dobson Orion XT12 (300 x 1500mm => F/D 5)
– Eyepiece Televue Panoptic 15mm (mag x 100)
– no filter
While watching at this nice comet, close to Cephei, I got stunned seing the velociy of this object.
After only 5 minutes, I could notice a change in it’s location at only x100 magnification.
So I decided to take my scratchbook to report its moving path during a couple of hours.
There was no visible tail, I just could detect a slight dissimetry on the coma.
I was stargazing in (small) town, in my garden, with some lights around, so this was not the best condition.
The nucleus is not so bright as last Lovejoy’s one, and the green colour is fainter than the representation I made (just a little cheat:)
The magnitude is difficult to estimate on these objects, but I guess it was about 7 or better.
The comet was on Aug. 27th the closest from earth (about 0,56UA) and it is also reaching these days it’s peak of activity.
NOTE : On Aug 31th 0:00 to 2:00 don’t miss the conjunction with Mu Cephei (the beautiful Herschel’s Garnet Star) even maybe an occultation by the comet!
Thanks for your interest.
Jean-Marc Saliou
APAM astroclub – France
Webmaster’s note: ASOD viewers have probably noticed that Comet Jacques has been the focus of the last few days. This reflects the great number of excellent sketches submitted of this comet.
Object Name (C/2014 E2 Jacques)
Object Type (Comet)
Location (Varages Provence France)
Date (24-08-2014)
Media (watercolour, 4 white paper, Paint.net and 3D photo maker)
With our sketches we are staying with 2D only, the two dimensions of our papers.
So, I project to reach 3D with anaglyph (cyan-red) glasses. It’s not so easy to make four watercolour layers, two inverted one naked eye for the sky and another through the eyepiece for the comet, plus two classical views one for the telescope and one for the landscape… and then compile all of them with stereo slip.
But on top of that I want to reach another dimension, the time! Today, it was the good time to try that!
This Lautter refractor, was build in 1830 ! The telescope and this lovely mount aren’t copies but originals. In the year 1830, the comet Jacques was very far from the today’s orbit. To give an idea of this 1830 old-time, we just invent photography and railway, the country of Belgium, the cities of Miami and Victoria doesn’t exist yet. That gives us an idea of the fourth dimension.
The light coming from the comet Jacques was seen trough those very old lenses.
The watercolours show this old lady refractor of Jean-Luc and Caroline, my friends from the “La Blaque” domain, near Varages in Provence.
This antiquity was shown for the first time to the public during our yearly star party : august 2014 24th; what a success! I was lucky to receive some EP time (just 15 minutes) to sketch the comet Jacques. Regarding the long queue of curious waiting for a view of the comet I was quite happy.
A diameter of 180mm f/d 15 with a 40mm eyepiece gives a magnification of 67X. The end time for the comet field was 21:45 UTC.
To see the 3D effect of the second picture you have to use anaglyph glasses.
Clear sky to you all !
Michel Deconinck
– Object name: C / 2014 E2 Jacques
– Subject Type: Comet
– Location: Pueblonuevo Bullaque; Ciudad Real (Spain)
– Date: 08/24/2014 Time: 00:30 TU
– Media: 0.5b graphite pencil, HB 2.5; Dither and processed for inverting black with GIMP 2.8 software
– Telescope: achromatic refractor; 152mm lens; 1200mm focal length; focal ratio F / 7.9
– Mount: HEQ5 Pro goto equatorial
– Eye: 25mm William Optics 2 “48X with 1.5 ° real field
– Observing conditions: wind calm; 4/5 stability; 4/5 transparency and an approximate limiting magnitude, at first glance at the zenith of 6
Greetings and thank you very much
Web: http://elportaldelaastronomia.wordpress.com/
Francisco José Caleya
Object Name: Comet C/2014 E2 (JACQUES)
RA: 02h 04m 07.8s; Dec: + 63° 39′ 26.9″
Magnitude: 6.4
Constellation: Cassiopeia
Location: Pueblonuevo de Bullaque. Ciudad Real. SPAIN
Date: August 22, 2014.
Local Time: 01:57 (2h T.U)
Material used: pastel pencil and white ink on black paper.
Celestron Telescope S/C 8″ Mount Cgt-5
Eyepiece: 22 mm L-VW
Magnification: 92x.
More information: http://astrodibujo.blogspot.com
Hey ASOD!
This is not often to see on the sky, two comet-tails with the star ALGOL
in the middle of them!!
The observations were made one year apart, but both at 10 apr. 21.00U.T.!
More info on my sketches! I hope you all enjoy the observations.
Both sketches were made with waterbased color- crayons on black paper.
Loc.: Trondheim, Norway.
Thank you for comments, and have a nice time under the stars!
Best from Per-Jonny Bremseth.
Hello friends of the dark side,
here is my second comet sketch. I drawed P 168 Hergenrother at the 19. October 2012 between 22.15 and 23.00 p.m. The brightness of the comet is near 11mag. It shows very nice in the starfield.
I used my 115/805 TMB APO with the Baader Zoom ocular (8 – 24mm) and the 22mm Nagler ocular. I know, that it is very difficult to fix the fine nuances of the comet tail with the pencil, but I don´t wipe at my sketches.
O.k. so I hope, that my result satifies you.
Clear skies, Uwe
Hey ASOD!
I send you C/ 2004 Q2 (Machholz).
This comet was a very interesting object to observe also in high
magnification, as it showed two faint jets from the false nucleus
and a great seperation between the ion- and dustail. Info on sketch.
It was also splended to observe with my 10 x 50 binos as it glided
near the Pleiade starcluster. (See my bino- sketch on ASOD- gallery)!
I used pencil on white paper (inverted).
Loc.: Trondheim, Norway.
Best wishes from Per-Jonny Bremseth.
Object: Comet (C/2012 K1 Panstarrs)
Date: May 27, 2014
Location: Aguila, Arizona USA
Medium: Digital, iPhone – The following apps were used to render the sketch; Sketchbook Mobile, Juxtaposer, Paint FX & eZY Watermark.
Instruments: Binoculars- Orion 25×100 and Celestron 8×56 with a FoV of 2.5 degrees and 5.8 degrees respectively.
Magnitude: 8.5
Weather: One cannot ask for a better night than, 75 degrees F and no winds! A superb clear and dark sky with an average read out of 21.6 mag/arcsec^2.
Comments:
The comet is not a naked eye object just yet. However, with the help of a good dark site, averted vision and my 8×56 binos, you can detect “her fuzziness” among the stars. My guiding or go-to star was 52Psi UMa. Below or to the west of 52Psi UMa, are three stars of almost equal magnitude. Within those stars, there appeared the the dirty chunk of sublimating matter. No other physical characteristics were noticed using the 8×56 binoculars except to spot the fuzzy traveler.
Wohoo, we have a tail! That’s what the 25×100 will reveal. Yes, the coma and false nucleus become evident along with the dust tail. Dim but noticeable is the dust tail that is somewhat broad and undefined, extending towards the east. I would calculate it to be about 1/3rd of a degree in length. Glowing at magnitude 8.5 according to some sources, comet Panstarrs also, showed a faint stellar nucleus. I gave an estimate to its degree of condensation to be between 4 and 5. I tried to look for any greenish hue but none was noticed. Panstarrs C/2012 K1 is a tenuous comet that’s a challenge to observe but, will give us some more and better opportunities as the months progress.
About the sketch- I’d like to add that digital sketching is not a scopeside skill that I have mastered. I made many attempts to plot the starfield of the binoculars with no success. The repetitive task of looking back and forth between iPhone and binoculars killed my dark adapted eyes.The iPhone is very bright even when the screen brightness is vastly decreased. So the next logical steps was to take all information on paper, plus make mental notes of all and any pertinent physical traits. Once that was done, I went ahead back to the iPhone like a champ and put all that info to visualization. Enjoy!
Clear and Dark Skies,
Juanchin
Hey ASOD!
I send you a binocular-observation of the splended C/ 1995 01 (Hale- Bopp)!
I think that comets is the most interesting objects on the sky with many
surprises and fine to observe for amateur- astronomers. Info on my sketch.
Loc.: Trondheim, Norway.
I used watercolor crayons on black paper.
