In a message dated 7/23/00 8:26:41 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Dave North writes:
About 40 minutes of tail showed, and a hint of a second (westward) tail...
David,
Glad to hear you got some good views. Conditions were good at Coe. Excellent transparency, and the seeing was very good, but not great. The Milky Way was very bright. We too watched the Comet approach a star, but I didn't keep watching to see it get occulted. We had a very slight breeze most of the night, but it wasn't a hindrance. People who had arrived earlier in the day said they were worried about a hurricane. Also noticed the length of the tail, although I didn't make any estimates of it's length. There were a lot of scope set up, and it was fun to see how different each scope/magnification combo presented the comet. Someone said after viewing thorugh a bunch of scopes, they felt 100x gave the best presentation.
I think it's good that we get reports from different parts of the Bay Area about observing conditions on a given night. Gives people lots of options and information when they make decisions on where to go observing.
Thanks, David.