McNaught from Coe

by Steve Winston

Had a very short session at Coe last night. Arrived around 4:00pm and had plenty of time to set-up and then sit back and enjoy the sunset. Beautiful skies with only a bit of wind as the sun went down. Soon after sunset though the wind picked up and kept varying in strength for the rest of the evening.

I started looking for McNaught with binoculars as soon as the sun was below the horizon, but it took at least 15 minutes before I found it. It was a lot lower and further west of Venus that I had assumed. Wow - that's one bright comet! It was already hovering just above the orange muck but the core and fan-tail were easily visible and well defined. I swung the 18" down horizontal and sat on the ground. The nucleus was big and bright, but being so low, was boiling all over the place. The tail was visible, but not as well defined as in the binocs. Anyway, I stayed on the ground, alternating between the binocs and the scope, following the comet right up until it set behind some distant hills. It's safe to say that's the first time I've ever watched a comet set :-)!

It seemed to be only visible to the naked eye for a couple of minutes - some point when the sky was just dark enough but it hadn't yet sunk too low into the muck.

Spent the the next couple of hours looking at Winter eye-candy but had to pack up around 8 and head home to do some work :<.

Was well worth the trip, though.

Steve