73P Fragment C With Naked Eye!

I'm in the UK at the moment, and was out last night in a field in Somerset, where I was also able to spot C & B easily in Corona Borealis using my 10x50s. I could make out the elongated shape of the comas of both fragments quite easily.

So there I was standing in this field, having a look at the comet fragments and M13 with the binocs, when I heard this loud rumbling coming out of the darkness... a large herd of cattle in full stampede towards me!! I had just enough time to get back over the turnstile, at which point I turned around to see the herd of about 40 cattle thundering over the spot where I had been standing just seconds earlier! Talk about risking life and limb to catch a couple of faint fuzzies...

no help from bootes? , that guy falling asleep on the job again ?.
stephen.

Heres a few replies i got from the Minor planet mailing list including the famous John Bortle

Hi Martin,
>
> due to bad weather etc. I was not able to see the comets for some
days.
>
> > 73P/ SW3 fragments C and B were lovely telescopic objects last
night. I could see them both very easily in my 10X50 binos. C was
elongated however B looked easier with more of an oval shape with the
bright CC observed. At 00.50 UT when Hercules was nearly at the
Zenith i could clearly see fragment C with the naked eye as a fuzzy
patch of light!! At first i seen it with averted vision then several
times with direct vision...the comet was unmistakable! Perhaps the
recent visual magnitude estimates of C have been on the conservative
side and underestimated? Can anyone else detect it visually? My sky
trans was only 7/10 and i could still see it easily.
>
> I can easily imagine that a large and very faint coma is not seen
with telescopic
> means but becomes apparent with the naked eye. This is the reason
why the smallest
> instrument for brightness estimations of comets is recommended. The
comet is now
> already quite close that an apparent large coma could be expected.
>
> Confirmations of your observation are strongly encouraged -
everyone should try to
> detect component C with the naked eye.
>
> Cheers, Maik

This situation is precisely what I predicted and warned observers
about several months ago on this mailing list: that as it approached
perigee, 73P would display coma dimensions (and thus strongly
differing intergrated magnitudes) varying drastically with regard to
the instrument employed.

The very fact that the C component is being reported as so small (2'-
4') by so many observers, in spite of the comet's extreme proximity
to Earth, underscores the fact that - generally because of lack of
contrast from employing too much magnification (or having too poor
skies) - the comet's coma is being drastically underestimated. One
can clearly see how the brightening of C has slowed recently and I
fully expect any magnitude determinations made over the next two
weeks employing any instrumentation whatever will not show the comet
brightening beyond magnitude 6.0, just as in 1930. However, those
fortunately observers enjoying pristine skies (mag. limit 7+) are
going to see an object at least half a degree, maybe even a full
degree, in diameter with a total magnitude of around 4 with the naked
eye.

As I related at some point in a much earlier post, I once saw a
small, intrinsically very faint comet, much like 73P is, approach
very close to Earth in the 1980's. At perigee I could definitely see
it with my unaided eye as a large, faint, totally diffuse "cloud"
about 45' in diameter. At the same time, 5-cm binoculars could only
suggest a much smaller, vague, ghostly brightening of the sky
background in the position even when using averted vision. My 32-cmL
showed nothing whatever at the comet's location.

So...be warned again. The smallest, lowest power binoculars, or
better yet the unaided eye, are the only things suitable for
observing 73P to determining meaningful m1 values over the next
month. Employing anything else is going to result in worthless or at
best dramatically misleading photometric data.

JBortle

Never heard of John Bortle.

Now, if it was comets, I'd be asking the famous Martin McKenna...

Dave

LOL..thanks Dave :oops:

Just got my observation confirmed.