by Dennis Beckley
I'm not normally an early riser, prefering to stay up late at night, but I got myself up around 4:00 and along with my wife, Barbara, and fellow observer, Darrell Lee who joined us at our house at that ungodly hour loaded the 10 x 70 binoculars, binocular mount, red light and observing chart into the staion wagon and headed north on I-680 for about 8 miles to the Marshview Road exit. We crossed over the freeway and headed a short distance back south along a frontage road that parallels I-680 to a long driveway leading up to a distant ranch.
We set up on the asphalt and could see Venus low on the horizon shining brightly in the eastern pre-dawn sky. There were low lying clouds all along the eastern horizon and the outside temperture was around 40 degrees.
The comet was easily swept up just inside the SE border of Aquilus. Relatively bright stars - 1 Aqr (mag 5.1)and 71 Aql (mag 4.3) were just about 2 degrees to the south.
The comet was fairly bright (estimated about mag 5.3) with a bright nucleus and soft moderately larger outer coma with a slight bluish color. There was a short (maybe 1-2 degree tail at PA 290). It was nicely framed in the 5.9 degree FOV of the Fujinons.
We observed it for 30 minutes and then climbed back into the station wagon and headed home for a couple more hours of sleep. I'm glad we got up so early to see this beautiful comet and it was nice to share it with my wife, Barbara, and good friend, Darrell.
Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 04, 2006 20:50:12 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 06, 2006 21:10:30 PT