My TV-102 was out tonight looking at the Comet A2/Linear between 1:30am to 2:15:am PDT (or 8:30-9:15 UT). What a sight! The sky was mag 5. I couldn't see the comet naked eye until after I've located it. Only then, I could see it naked eye with averted vision by looking up the refractor tube! A session like tonight really remind me why I like planetary/comet observation so much more than DSO; these solar system objects are so "alive"!
I used magnification of 22x, 30x, 60x, 110x, 146x, 176x, 220x and 293x. 293x still gave an acceptably bright view of the comet! The best view tonight was at 146x. I noticed tonight that the comet was surrounded by 3 dim stars that formed a triangle. I imagine then that the comet was caught up in the Bermuda Triangle ;-). There was a brighter star near by, perfect for using to focus. The two stars are dimmer (I'm no good at estimating magnitude - my guess is they are around 10th magnitude). 15 minutes into the observation, I've settled on the 146x (6mm TV Radian) for the rest of the session. I then noticed that the comet has moved toward one of the 10th magnitude star. At around
I slipped in my 3mm TV Radian (293x) to inflate the star's airy disc and imagine the star to be a planet. The view then gave me an eerie feeling that the comet is going to colide with a planet and reminded me of the old movie classic "When Two Worlds Collide" (or something like that).
I then turned my refractor to M31. It's definitely brighter than the comet. It's fortunate that M31 is close to the comet so that some historical correlation may be hypothesized. Through my 4" APO, I could see why so many observers in the 18th century thought that galaxies were comet. M31 really look very much like the Comet Linear except that it's larger, brighter and more elliptical.
The most impressive thing I got out of the session is that the comet is moving and moving *fast*.