The first view we had of comet C/1999 S4 (Linear) was at Glacier Point on July 1st. That was at an elevation of 7214 feet.above sea level, in the beautiful darkness of Yosemite National Park. On that occasion we viewed the comet through more than a dozen telescopes ranging from 30 inch reflectors to 4 inch refractors, and on down to our 9X63 (Celestron) binoculars.
The second view we had of the comet was from our backyard in San Rafael, California tonight July 20th at an elevation of 134 feet above sea level in the urban semi darkness of a medium sized city. After dinner we looked up the location of the comet on Skymap 6 which we finally loaded on the computer. The July Sky and Telescope map was discarded in favor of an up-to-date comet path. We downloaded updated ephemerides for the comet and displayed the star chart. A quick run upstairs and out to the deck assured us that the nose of Ursa Major was still above the horizon. Whew! But the big bear was nosing close to hillside ridge. We had to move quick!
I had set up my 6 inch "Red Dwarf" Schwaar Companion reflector an hour earlier, and then set out to delete some email for a while. I took out my old 10X50 Carton Alderblicks, and had a quick look. I thought I saw the comet in about the right place but it looked too big. Back down to the computer for a verification. I drew a mental line between bear nose (omicron Ursa Major) and bear neck (upsilon Ursa Major). The comet was exactly halfway between these two stars at 11:00 PM (0600 UT July 21). Another star hopping guide I used was the "three leaps of the gazelle" asterism. These "leaps" are three sets of double stars. Iota and kappa Ursa Major are the northernmost leaps, and the comet was directly north of these stars. Some people see these stars as the front paws of Ursa Major.
Sure of my position, I aimed the telrad at the spot and Eureka! There it was! It was an easy find in the small F/5 reflector using a 12mm Vixen Lanthanum for a 63X view. The bright nucleus was offset by a diffuse and very long tail. Switching to the 6mm Vixen gave a murky 125X view, but did show a bit more of the tail, but the nucleus was getting fuzzy. It was getting pretty wet out there! The telrad had quite a bit of dew on it, but the comet was beautiful! The best part of my view was recalling from my memory those nights not too many years ago when I took my first homemade 10 inch reflector out on this same back deck and viewed comet Hale Bopp, not too far from this direction in the sky.
Back then I sketched the comet through these same binoculars and at the eyepiece of my F7.3 10 incher. Tonight I had a choice of telescopes, a box of eyepieces and several pairs of binos to choose from for my backyard comet hunting. Being sentimental, I chose the older binos and my little reflector for my backyard comet search.
Tomorrow night, I'll take Stardust, the homemade 10 incher out and view the comet one more time for auld lang syne from the back deck. Then off to a not-so-secret but humble comet viewing spot used for decades by an auld friend of mine. We'll reminisce about all the comets seen from this spot in times past. We'll no doubt compare those sometimes magnificent comets of the past to this newcomer. Then we'll smile at each other and quietly take another good look at comet Linear.
Jane
37.58N 122.31W