Comet VZ13 / M3 conjunction

by Dennis Beckley

Still it was a pretty sight with my XT 10 and using both my 31 mm Nagler and my 27 PanOptic. Both the comet and the Messier Globular were seen in the same field of view but just barely in the narrower FOV of the 27 PO. The contrast was better however in the PO. The globular was to the left of the field (the north) and the comet was to the right (almost directly S., between two mag 9 stars) about 45' distant. There was a mag 7 star just to SE of the comet.

M3 is a large, bright, irregularly round globular cluster with a high degree of central concentration. Just by slightly boosting the power many of it's stars are resolvable. There was some reddening effect since I was seeing it during twilight. Very beautiful and one of my favorite Globs!

The comet wasn't as nice as it was prior to the star parties. Tonight It was irregularly round, greyish , and seemed smaller and much dimmer than when last viewed. There was still some central brightening. I couldn't see any tail. Using a star defocussing method of adjacent field stars I estimated it was closer to mag 8 (The globular is mag 6 for comparison) There was some movement detected over a span of 30 minutes. The comet's dimming and size reduction may have something to do with the first quarter moon as well as intrinsic changes.

Messier started his list to weed out the comet look-a-likes from the real deal and it was neat see first hand the nature of his problem.

I'm sure somewhere astrophotographers were busy obtaining images of this unique celestial event and hopefully we'll see them in future issues of Astronomy or S&T.

All and all very nice way to spend a warm summer evening.

Dennis Beckley