Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
Location: home, Bortle 6.0. Equipment: Orion Little Giant II 15x70 binoculars, free hand.
I wanted to follow up on my first sighting of C/2021 A1 (Leonard) comet last week. Started tonight at 17:30 with Venus still visible but disappearing below horizon. First half hour did not return any results. At 18:00 more stars became visible in binoculars, so I could do proper star hopping. Started with Fomalhaut visible naked eye and went down until I hit Delta 1 and 2 Gruis. Followed the chain of stars in Gruis (Delta 1/2, Mu 1/2, Lambda, Gamma) horizontally to the right. And finally, about 4 degree to the right and slightly down from Gamma Gruis I have spotted the comet. It was smaller and fainter then last week, but visible with direct vision in gray twilight sky. Brighter nucleus within fainter coma and beginning of the tail.
There were thin high clouds hanging above horizon, so you experience may vary. But it is still possible to spot it from US (or at least California) with binoculars.