Comet Jacques

Comet Jacques this morning from North Dublin city





John

Hi John, Compliments on your fine image of Comet Jacques. I have been 'at the ready' all week hoping to try and observe this comet but any clear skies have been too late for me.
According to Starry Night Pro, as of now, the apparent magnitude is 10.7 I was wondering what your own estimate would be. Well done. Conn

Nice image, was there any sign of a tail visible through the eyepiece?

I'm hoping to see it tonight, I wasn't able to go observing last night, looked like a nice sky.

Well done Paul, good to see the images coming in.

I could not find a known comparison star in my image but Heavens Above gives a magnitude of 13.1 for that date. No significant tail observed.

The position for my image was RA 02h 03m 45.0s, Dec +63° 32' 57.5"

John

The comet was easy to locate last night as it was close to Epsilon Cassiopeia. From my suburban garden, I saw it very easily as a slightly elongated misty patch through my 15 x 50 binoculars. Looked brighter than 9th magnitude to me, probably mag. 8. I did not see any hint of its green colour.

There is a good Finder Chart here cometchasing.skyhound.com/

Gordon

Hi ,
I am a beginner and I would like to see this comet but I am unsure how to find it .
If I put in the RA and DEC co ordinates you used last night into my goto would I see the comet with a 40 degree eyepiece at 2.00 am tonight.
Or are there more up to date co ordinates for tonight available.
I see the chart on comet chasing but do not know how to find the RA/DEC for tonight.
Thank you
Mark

Edited.
One second Mark, I see you're from Drogheda so the coordinates will be different.

Here you are : RA 01h 07m 22.9s, Dec +65° 13' 22.8"

Pretty close after all, it is 54m miles away I suppose:)

Positions for all kinds of sky objects can be plotted on Stellarium

Hi Fermidox ,

Thank you for the information. I believe I have found co ordinates from Drogheda at RA 01h38m23s and DEC +64°44'13" from this website.
in-the-sky.org/cometephem.php?obj=ck14e020
The website does not give a particular time to look it says visible all night, the comet chaser site mentions 1.50 am.
Do I point my scope at these new co ordinates and wait till 1.50 am,?
Do I turn off the tracking,(sidereal )leave it on ?
Thank you
Mark

Mark - The comet is indeed visible all night, so unless you've any particular reason for waiting till 2am you can look out for it from any time around now really.

If you click on the 'Planetarium' tab of that site you mentioned (in-the-sky.org) it will show you the comet's position for any time of night, the coordinates are taken from the minor planet centre so it should be as reliable as Stellarium.

Best of luck, hope you don't have the scattered clouds we've got down here in Limerick!

yea, the clouds rolled in last night, so it'll have to wait until later this week for a view..

Like Friday, Saturday night was a lovely clear night too on the east coast so I hope you got to see the comet. If you're having problems finding it with your telescope, use binoculars to sweep it up as their wide field of view makes it easy. The coma shows as a roundish misty white patch amongst the stars of Cassiopeia and can't really be confused with anything else. The tail is only visible in long exposure photographs and perhaps large telescopes. My 15 x 50 binoculars darken the sky a bit more than my 10 x 50 binoculars but it's easily visible through either.

It's said to be around 8.6 mag now and fading although I thought it was brighter (ignore the extremely low magnitudes mentioned on Heavens Above and Starry Night Pro). Weather is bad now so hopefully it will improve during the week.

Gordon

The magnitude of the comet these days is between 6 and 7. Estimating this with comparing the coma in focus with stars not in focus. Of course, you must never count on values given in software or on simulation sites, these are calculations from universal predicted efemerides.

Coldfieldboundary wrote: The magnitude of the comet these days is between 6 and 7. Estimating this with comparing the coma in focus with stars not in focus. Of course, you must never count on values given in software or on simulation sites, these are calculations from universal predicted efemerides.

+7 seems to be the current estimate per an average of binocular observations (between 6.8 and 7.2) in various countries over the past few days and this ties in with figures given by the BAA Comet section and S&T, who both say +7. Could be late this week before the weather clears again and we get another look so will probably have faded a bit by then.
Gordon

Mag 7 is brighter then reported a week or so ago, why would it fade now, is it heading away from us ?

It was at perihelion in early July, so it is now expected to fade gradually over the next while. Saw it while down in Kerry, good to observe it, but as comets go, pretty unremarkable.

A few of us got a really good view of it in a 10" dob while down in Kerry. I guessed around mag 8. Distinct greenish colour, but no sign of a tail.

I chanced looking out the window at home here and there isn't a cloud in the sky !
So I just had a look at it here with my 12" and its a fairly non-descript fuzzy blob, usual run of the mill comet with no tail.
although there is a nice ~mag7 yellow star about 4 arc mins away that puts a little colour in the frame...

turned into a nice night, got in a few globulars, the ring nebula and a number of nice doubles before I got tired and turned in.