Location: home,
Equipment:
The light pollution is pretty bad at my home location, so I mostly focus on doubles when observing from here. However, inspired by recent comet hunting report from Shelby I decided to catch a few myself. For the most parts Sky Safari does poor job estimating comets brightness, so for my selection of targets I rely on Comet Chasing/Skyhound.
Comets
19P/Borrelly – 9.2 mag comet in Cetus. It was easily spotted in both 180mm Mak/Aspheric 36mm (75x) and SV102/Delite 18.2mm (39x). Bright stellar nucleus and faint
104P/Kowal – 11.5 mag comet in Cetus. Very faint spot with averted vision in 180mm Mak/Panoptic 27mm (100x), confirmed with Delite 18.2mm (148x).
4P/Faye – 12.5 mag comet in Monoceros – FAIL. I got unlucky with this one. It was only 6” from 13.3 mag field star. I could not tell if I see the comet, the star or both together unresolved.
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann – 11.5 mag comet in Taurus. The comet was pretty much at zenith, but the AZMP mount has handled it nicely. Very faint small round fuzzy in 180mm Mak/Delite 15mm (180x).
6P/d’Arrest – 11.1 mag comet in Cetus. Faint fuzzy star in 180mm Mak/Delite 13mm (208x).
It took about 80 minutes to hunt those comets down, but it was totally worth it.
Monoceros doubles
STF 823 – 8.9, 9.7, 7.5”, yellow, white – SV102/Delite 11mm (65x), 180mm Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x). Both scopes have framed this double nicely.
BNW 4 – 8.0, 10.8, 46.7”, white, gun metal – nice contrast in 180mm Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x).
STF 869 – 8.2, 9.1, 24.6”, pale yellow, white – better presented in SV102/ES26 (27x) vs Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x).
BU 567 – 6.0, 10, 4.2”, white, white – kept pushing power in 180mm Mak until with Delite 5mm (540x) the dim secondary was resolved. The view was fuzzy due to poor seeing but smaller blob sitting next to larger was unmistakable.
BAL 319 - 8.9, 10.3, 5.6”, white, silver – split with some black in the middle with 180mm Mak/Delite 15mm (180x).
J 53 AC – 7.0, 10.7, 34.6”, yellow, gun metal - Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x).
STF 911 – 8.7, 9.0, 11.7”, orange pair - better presented in SV102/Delite 15mm (48x) vs Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x).
BAL 1695 – 6.2, 10.4, 19.4” – the main was of rich copper color in both scopes. It took some elbowing to squeeze out grayish secondary with averted vision using 180mm Mak/Delite 9mm (300x).
STT 142 – 7.1, 10.6, 8.2” – once again had to push power with 180mm Mak/Delite 5mm (540x) to resolve dim fuzzy secondary next to the bright bluish main.
BAL 63 – 7.1, 11, 12.6” – another one of those close uneven pairs. Dim blurry secondary was resolved next to the bright orange main with averted vision with 180mm Mak/Delite 5mm (540x).
STF 920 – 7.4, 10.2, 12, ab9.5”, ac 30.7”, white, silver, gray – AB was an easy split with 180mm Mak/TV Plossl 32mm (84x). Dim fuzzy dot of C was resolved with averted vision with 180mm Mak/Delite 5mm (540x).
HJ 731 – 8.9, 10, 11.4”, white, silver – easy split with 180mm Mak/TV Plossl 32mm.
This 180mm