With the good seeing I decided to finish what I had left out last time: separate Alnitak properly. The telescope did that without blinking an eye. Then some finger exercises on Rigel, the Orion Nebula and the Eskimo Nebula. But I didn't come out for those. Of course, it was comet C/2022 E3 that got my full attention.
According to Stellarium, it was neatly located in Auriga between the triangle Almaaz, Haedus and Saclateni. Doesn't that tell you anything? That's the triangle of stars of magnitude 3 near Capella, visible with great ease in binoculars. Better known to me as the "three little goats" in Auriga. In the sketch visible as the three brightest stars. Almaaz at the top. The sketch gives the impression of the image in the 24 mm Panoptic at 20X.
Finding the comet therefore presented no problem, and was even in the viewfinder at once. At a magnification of 20X in the main scope, it was an adorable sight. The comet itself had a somewhat denser nucleus, easily mistaken for a faint star. The haze around it made everything clear. At 70X, of course, I lost sight of the triangle; the comet got a little bigger, but no further details visible. I still looked for C/2022 U2, nearby, but it was too faint to see visually with this
Then I went at my leisure to look for the beautiful images of the Seven Sisters and the Orion Nebula, at various magnifications and, among other things, to determine how deep I got that night. That was Magn. 11.7 near the Pleiades, the faint stars right next to Atlas and Pleione. Experimenting a bit with a new telescope....always fun.
At the end of the session, when my cold feet gave the "go in" command, I again briefly looked for the comet. To my surprise, it had now moved quite a bit, much more than I expected. The sketch gives an impression of it. First sketch gives the impression of 18.00hrs
Please click on the image for a better view.
Thanks for reading
