ISON is months ahead, but there's a comet in the sky right now. PANSTARRS is fainter, and smaller, a lot less impressive than we all hope ISON will be (and a lot less impressive than we hoped it would be itself) but it's still well worth looking for. I finally managed to see it from here in Kendal last night. Full report, with pics, on my blog if anyone would like a look...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/comet-panstarrs

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Saw it from San Diego last night. Not a naked-eye object for my aging eyes, but easy enough in binoculars.

Nice picture, Stu! I saw it last night. Was barely naked-eye visible in my light polluted suburb, but easily seen with binoculars.

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Saw it Tuesday night and again tonight from a rooftop in Washington DC. Lucky to have some really clear evenings, was excited to see the wedge-shaped comet with the whitish-yellow bright tip, from about 8-10 degrees right down almost to the horizon. Used 7x50 binocs and it was easy to find with the moon as reference. Was ever-so-slightly visible naked eye if you knew where to look and averted the vision just a bit.

Yes I saw it in a suburb of Dallas. Even with binoculars I would have had a hard time spotting it, without the guidance of the moon two nights ago. But once I knew where to look, I spotted it the next night, too. But too much light pollution here for naked eye visibility.

Unusually enough for LA, been clouded out in just the wrong spots on the two nights I've been able to try (including tonight.)

Stu: That's a pretty good picture. I'd be pleased if I could capture one as nice with the equipment I have. I've been in light pollution until yesterday, so I didn't even try to look for it until I got home tonight. I easily found it with 8x50s, but I had to wait longer into the twilight than I was expecting to. I live in a reasonably dark area and I would describe the comet as quite dim. (By the way, I am trying to support the International Dark-Sky Association.) Check out their site. It's loaded with great information.

I can't believe you saw it in San Diego. How's your light pollution there? I can relate to the aging eyes thing. After finding it with binos, both my wife and I thought we might, quite, possibly be seeing it when looking in the proper direction. Curiously, instead of finding the brightest image by somewhat averting my eyes, it seemed to me that my best attempts at a naked-eye observation concluded that the axial view was most successful.


Washington, DC...are you kidding me? Ok, now I am beginning to suspect that this comet may have experienced a flare, or eruption, or burp before I was able to get back to reasonably dark skies.


I watched the moon for several hours as I drove back to Texas, trying to squint the comet without an inkling of success while cleaning the windshield.

Dallas...? Alright, I quit. This has got to be a cruel joke, or a freak of nature.

Dark skies don't really matter with this comet at the moment, as it is so close to the Sun on the sky. When the comet sets under the horizon it still twilight. As long as there are no close streetlights or similar in direct view, seeing the comet naked eye should be possible anywhere. The comet is moving away though, so the situation will change in a matter of days, as it moves to darker skies but also dims at the same time.

Here's my photo of the comet from last evening:

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Another great viewing session tonight...

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Have to agree with akuo here -- because it was at twilight I was surprised how little adjustment my eyes needed to see the comet fairly bright in the binoculars. Using the crescent moon to find it was key for me. The light pollution is bad for sure. But we did have a few really clear nights this week - the sky wasn't even yellow! I usually have a hard time seeing mag 5.5 stars with the 7x50s but with the nearly new moon and the clear sky I saw some 7.0 ones on Thurs. I also got lucky in that I had a space between taller buildings where I could see to the horizon in the west from my rooftop.

That's an excellent photo of Pan-STARRS, Antti.

If I am understanding you and Greenish correctly, you are saying that light pollution does not matter in this case because the comet is already bright enough to be seen in spite of the fact that we are looking at it in twilight and quite near to the horizon. I guess that makes sense to me in one way, but I would have expected that the back-scattering of photons by the atmosphere would be an additive thing, and that the contrast between the comet and the background would be reduced proportionately by the quantity of light going up into the sky.

Regardless, I am happy to to be able to see any comet that comes around. I am really enjoying the speculation about ISON's arrival this
Fall.

Let us all pray...

Just to add another big city observation:

From the center of Munich on Friday 15th. Sun elevation -11 deg.
Easy in 10x50 with a nice short tail. With naked eye barely visible.

With respect, akuo, I don't think that's true. The difference between viewing PANSTARRS in a dark sky or from a light polluted location is quite stark. It's the difference between just seeing the comet as a star-like object in the sky, mentally putting a "Ah, that's it, ok, seen it now" tick next to it after hearing about it for so long, and *really* seeing it, i.e. detecting the gentle curve of the tail and seeing the lovely yellow-gold hues of the comet.

If you're restricted to viewing the comet from a light polluted location, then obviously you just make the best of a bad job. Look for it, find it, have a look at it through binoculars. But if you can escape the lights, everyone, please, do so. PANSTARRS might not be a Great Comet like Hale-Bopp, McNaught or Lovejoy, but it is very pretty in binoculars, is a lovely colour, and from a dark sky site is visible to the naked eye. And a naked eye comet is always something to make the effort to see, to enjoy, and to celebrate.

I suppose light pollution does work as an additive, but so far the most significant light pollution by far has been the twilight for now. Observers try to estimate the magnitude of the comet, but on a comet so close to the horizon it is very difficult. Taking into account the extinction effect of the atmosphere, the estimates of Panstarr's magnitude lately have been in the 0 .. 1 mag range, some even into the negative magnitudes (http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/2011L4/2011L4.html), with those sort of numbers, it is more understandable why the comet is visible in the twilight and in light polluted areas.

ditto on that...

I think this is the best image I was able to capture from Hale-Bopp. Others accomplished much better. What I enjoyed most about this comet (aside from its brightness) was its pair of tails. It had the delicately arcing, golden dust trails in orbit, and a beautifully pointing ion tail from the Sun. Incredible.

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I saw PANSTARS on Thu, Fri and Sat. The best view was on Sat. Also on Sat it was just barely visible as a point of light with the naked eye. This is in moderatly light poluted Orange Park ( NE Florida ), but we do have a nice view of the western sky.

I was very lucky to see the comet today as there was a deck of stratus that finished about 8 degrees above the western horizon. The tail is pointing slightly to the right now. It was probably the same brightness as yesterday, there was some thin cloud or haze in front of the comet. Viewed with 8x40 binoculars.

Saw PANSTARRS for the fourth time last night... just... struggle in freezing cold, tripod-buffeting winds and gathering cloud, but caught it...

http://waitingforison.wordpress.com/comet-panstarrs

I just saw the comet, we had rain all day and the stratus again was about 6 degrees above the horizon. The comet appeared half as dim again.

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I saw the comet briefly, slightly brighter today, but some high cloud came in and obscured the comet after a minute or so.

Despite clear skies but with a nearly full Moon, I could not see Panstarrs today.

I love this photo from one of our Westchester Astronomers club members, Carl Lydon.
"Panstarrs, Andromeda and myself"

Really great depth of field - from foreground self-portrait to the Andromeda Galaxy, with PanSTARRS!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=101...pe=1&ref=nf
or go the Westchester Astronomers' Facebook page and scan down the 'recent posts by others'

And no, I haven't see PanSTARRS yet.

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Is the comet still visible from say Florida in 8x40 bino's ?, as I can't see it anymore.
Thanks.

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Finally! Saw the comet Wednesday evening from the top of my High School bleachers. The tail is more fanned out in binoculars than in the photo.
A few more exposures at http://bkellysky.wordpress.com/

bob

After almost a month of truly godawful weather, FINALLY a beautiful clear night over the UK! And there in the NW was PANSTARRS...

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Saw it tonight! I was still pretty close to city lights, so it was not naked eye. It was a small smudge even through binoculars, but this is my first!

Had fantastic views Thursday night, details and pics on blogs later, but weather has been do bad here I made this for UK observers...

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Managed to catch PANSTARRS setting and rising last night/this morning... Grabbed a few photos of it from work, during my breaktime, at around 8pm, then stayed up until 2am this morning to try and get some photos of it and M31 shining together above Kendal Castle. Must have been -4, -5 deg C when I took this photo at 3am, but definitely worth it...

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A few hours ago we drove to a good site and finally managed to see it. Thanks for the patch!

If you see anyone with a "California" version years from now, you'll know it's a forgery.

I second that, unfortunately.

Depends on how many years Pan-STARRS keeps running. Maybe you'll see Pan-STARRS XVII

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Saw clear skies on the way home tonight and was all excited that at last I would see the elusive smudge in the sky. So you can imagine I about lost my mind when just after the Sun went down a hazy cloud patch formed through Andromeda and below Cassiopeia. I am seeing beautiful clear skies EVERYWHERE except toward the W/NW. I just did some research and apparently there's is a large body of water 100 miles in that direction from where I live.

So here's an image of Pleiades since I had the camera and tripod out and had to shoot something.

Gorgeous view of PANSTARRS snuggling up to M31 last night...

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Are you still able to see the comet naked-eye, Stu? Or does it require a pretty long exposure to become visible in your images?

I, alas, ran across cloudy western skies in the evenings for the entire time PANSTARRS would have been naked-eye visible through city lights here in Minneapolis. So, your pictures (and those of others) are all I have seen of it.

-the other Doug

Astro Bob's blog from Duluth, Minn., has photos and his experience with viewing the comet that may be helpful. (He has less light pollution, however.)
http://astrobob.areavoices.com/

bob (not related
bkellysky.wordpress.com

The problem with the 'naked eye' question is it's so close to M31 that whole area of sky looks like a 'something' to the naked eye. It's easily visible in binoculars, and I'm able to capture it with exposures of just a handful of seconds at an ISO setting of 400 with an f1.8 50mm lens.

...and this one taken 10pm 5th April...

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Blue skies for me today and no work tomorrow. The perfect conditions for me to get Stu's badge.

EGD, what camera & lens combination was your Pleiades taken with?

Andy

Andy the Pleiades image was taken with a Canon 60D using a 50-250 zoom at 250, f5.6, 1.0sec, ISO 1600. The image posted was 3800 pixels wide cropped from a 5100 pixel original.

Whenever I'm comparing lenses or other equipment in the night sky I like to use Pleiades since it's a large, easy-to-find target and really, the better the light gathering abilities, the more stars you are going to see.

I have treated myself to a 50mm f1.8 lens for my Canon, and am loving the results...

Many thanks EGD - so you've a limiting mag of about 8.1 at 1 second ... not too shabby!

Meanwhile (of course!) it's clouding up nicely. No comet for me tonight.

Andy

I've managed to catch it once from the NY Metro area with binoculars - a solid little comet - nothing terribly memorable - unfortunately it is very low in the skies in NY after twilight ends, and there tends to be low clouds in the narrow range of azimuth where its visible above the NYC smog/extreme light pollution (5-7.5 degrees).