"Its all about the comets", Joint Report, Joe & Phil

[scribbly]

Its a good morning down here, waking up tired after a night out under the stars, A RARITY for us in the past 2-years.

This is our 2nd observing night at Joe's in some 3-weeks, and, may I say, 34 South is starting to deliver its famous clear dark skies. This report is about both the objects viewed and some of the benefits of observing with a friend.

As the title and song goes it was "all about the comets.....all about the comets" (nothing to do about the "bass" - i.e. Meghan Trainor). Joe invited me down to observe this weekend because C/2022 E3 ZTF is expected to fade quickly, and this weekend could not be missed if we were to observe the comet, at the very short opportunity we would get, to observe it at the best we will get it from this latitude.

One of the good things about joint observing is the opportunity to observe with a variety of equipment, especially if time will be short. And SHORT IT WAS, with a particularly bright moon rising on both FRI & SAT evenings, giving us less than 90mins on Sat. Also for those of us who dabble in both imaging and observing, why be constrained to either passion on any one night; with a friend it is great fun to set up and share both observing and imaging rigs.....while the cameras sensors catch photons, so can all retinas present!

Finally, a last benefit observations: with our observing having been interrupted for some 1-2 years, after so much time, there are equipment (dead batteries, lost system configurations, etc), and boundless opportunity for "operator" failures to diminish the evenings successes, Having somebody to bounce ideas off and provide advice like "did you remember to....." goes a long way to having a great evening out.

Observing conditions were particularly excellent on Sat evening, with excellent transparency in particular. Friday evening while more than acceptable, though, lacked somewhat in transparency, with a haze being present. Also, unlike those more fortunate with their observing latitude WRT the comet, we were observing it reasonably low, in the North, exacerbating any atmospheric aberrations.

Now onto the visual observations of the Comets: C/2022 E3 ZTF (and C/2017 K2 (PANSTAARS)

C/2022 E3 ZTF was easily observed in a wide range of scopes:

• 10x42 ED binoculars.

On Fri, the comet appeared as a large fuzzy area, with a slightly elongation to towards the eastern horizon (looking North). The FOV though was quite spectacular with Mars and the comet playing off each other. On Sat evening, the binoculars were less successful, with the comet appearing as a lower contrast nebulous area; I suspect that this was potentially due the relative brightness and close proximity of Mars??

• 80mm Telescopes x 2 (ED80 and ST80), 31mm Nagler and 14mm Denk respectively.

The comet was easily observed in both 80mm scopes, providing nice bright views. The brighter area of the tail was observable, giving the impression of an arrowhead shape.

• Joe's 18" DOB, 31mm Nagler.

Now this is comet observing at its best. The comet appears almost photographically bright, and tends to that in the level of detail observable. The outer coma has a touch of green, with a very bright inner core region. The lightest areas of the tail fill the FoV, with a strong upwards curve to the left (noting the reversal of the image) emanating from the core area. The tail extends with averted vision for perhaps another half a degree or so (total 1.5 degrees of tail visible).

C/2017 K2 (PANSTAARS)
This comet was only observable in the 18" DOB. While having a reasonable magnitude, and Sky Safari listing it as higher in its "observing list" than C/2022 E3 ZTF, we found it to be very dim, even in a scope of this size. We observed the comet to be a stretched area of nebulosity, perhaps 1/4 of a degree long, with a slight arrow shape.

We considered finding the comet to be an achievement. Referring back to the earlier note of dead batteries, the scope did not have any automation working due to a dead battery and lost configuration; Joe had a moment of the "proud mentor" when the student was able to star hop and find such a challenging object.

We did take the opportunity to do a quick sky tour; though I think this report is long enough....and it is "all about the comets"


Thanks for reading.
Joe (@OzEclipse ) and Phil (@scribbly )

[helicon]

Great report guys and so far the largest instrument (18") used to track down the comet. Congratulations @OzEclipse and @scribbly for also observing Panstarrs and on co-winning the VROD for the day.

[Unitron48]

Great team reporting...and some great viewing!! Congrats to both on your VROD!!

Dave

[Greenman]

Well deserved VROD.

[Ylem]

Congratulations guys and the well deserved VROD!
What a fun evening!

[Butterfly Maiden]

A great collaborative effort @OzEclipse and @scribbly and congratulations on receiving the TSS VROD award for your effort.

[Bigzmey]

Excellent! Sounds like a great night and congrats on the VROD!

[Makuser]

Hi Joe and Phil. A superb Comet observing report from you two. I enjoyed reading of your session and it seems that the 18" Dob really delivered the views. Thanks for a great report Joe and Phil and congratulations on receiving the TSS VROD Award today.

[John Baars]

Great report with increasing aperture and as a finale even C/2017 K2.
Well done, great work, congratulations with the well deserved VROD!

[scribbly]

Hello All
who so nicely responded to our joint report. Yes it was quite an amazing couple of evenings observing the comets; so good in fact that Joe stayed for another night!
I have now enjoyed quite a few nights visiting Joe (@OzEclipse at 34South, and consider myself fortunate to have the opportunity to share his scope to see many faint objects such as PANSTAARS that I would not have otherwise seen (not to mention detail in objects that are brighter.
Phil