I had a few failed attempts at spotting comet C/2007 Loneos before we finally met.
I caught up with it about 4 degrees below Arcturus in the evening twilight low in
the west to North western sky. With the Moon at around 50% on the eve of the 19th
October this didn’t help detection either. My village is in a hollow so to get a
good horizon I need to walk about half a mile along a track which runs up a hill
at the edge of the village ( Capon’s Hill). I used an old 6″ (150mm) F5 Helios
refractor on an alt-azimuth mount, slung it over my shoulder and set off. Equipped
with a couple of eyepieces and a BAA locator chart. I found it within a few
minutes of commencing the search. The tail was very hard to pick out in the orange
murk of the horizon although the head and coma with bright nucleus showed a hint
of a blue/green tinge. I nudged the scope to initiate movement and employed every
bit of averted vision I could must muster in an endeavour to detect what I felt
(at the time) to be a realistic interpretation.
The eyepiece I used was a 22mm Nagler so I feel the tail in the sketch equates to
around 0.75 of a degree. I tried again the following evening and located the comet
with a little more difficulty but couldn’t detect the tail at all, the 65% Moon
had washed it away.
Guess that I was lucky to have picked the interloper out when I did.
Sketch made in a A6 sketch pad with a HB Derwent pencil and blending stump,
scanned image turned into a negative in photo-shop.
Clear Skies,
Dale Holt, England
Dale,
Wonderful report and sketch of this beautiful, classic looking comet. Your persistence has really paid out rewards for all of us.
Frank 🙂
Thank you Frank, Comets are such special visitors to our skies, you just never know when a bright one is going to come calling.
Go well, Dale
Dale,
Very nice sketch that represents this comet well. Thanks for sharing this with others here.
~WadeVC