Hi folks,
I just came in from viewing Comet Linear, I had tried to see it several times over the last few days from my home in Novato CA, but had been stymied by clouds, or moonlight. I had last seen it on July 2nd from Lake Sonoma, which is way darker than my driveway :-), in the wee hours of the morning. It has been a frustrating couple of weeks, even the start of the eclipse was invisible due to clouds, and the %#^%$# moon was hiding the comet in its glare.
Tonight was much better, good transparent seeing, and a little darkness before the moon rose. Fortunately* there are several quite dense trees that block the eastern sky from my front driveway, so the moon didn't seriously affect the views until around 11:15PM, so I had a good 45 minutes of "quality time" with the comet.
The NexStar5 got an easy initial alignment, (using Vega and Arcturus) and checked with Polaris, and M4 (just over the roof of the house). Camelopardis is not one of those constellations that I've spent much time in, and the sky there is not as familiar. Starry Night Pro show several NGCs and ICs and the comet is supposed to be quite close to NGC 2403 (something I'll have to come back to another night), as reported in some internet messages. A quick GOTO, and then pan-n-scan upwards soon found it, surprisingly easy after the problems of the last few days.
The N5 reported the position as RA 7h34.8m Dec +64°56'
Visually the comet appeared as a wedge of fuzziness, with a moderately bright head, and a diffuse tail stretching upwards towards a bright star (49 or 51 Camelopardis, from Starry Night Pro). Using a 35mm eyepiece the comet appeared sharply defined, with a 17mm eyepiece the head was fuzzy, and the tail more diffuse. I could not discern a second tail, nor make out any structure beyond the basic comet shape. After the moon rose a bit, the comet was much dimmer lost in the moon's glow, and I am sure I would have had great difficulty finding it.
Just after moonrise, I counted 10 stars in good old region 11, and all the stars in the Little Dipper were visible, for an estimated limiting magnitude of 5.0, which is pretty good for my home, (on a good night it will be 5.7). By contrast lake Sonoma, on a reasonable night, will have a Limiting Magnitude of about 6.4.
It was nice to see comet, in more normal hours and from home, as I could share it with my wife and son, giving them some clue about what makes astronomy fun...