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.
- 80mm Telescopes x 2 (ED80 and ST80), 31mm Nagler and 14mm Denk respectively.
- Joe's 18"
DOB , 31mm Nagler.
C/2017 K2 (PANSTAARS)
This comet was only observable in the 18"
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 )