Yet another lovely Christmas Comet courtesy of Rev Lovejoy..its becoming a habit

The last few Christmas's have been a blast for comet watchers the world over. Seems like bright naked eye comets are drawn to the time of the year when Christ was born. In fact there have been theories that the star of Bethleham might have actually been a comet, guiding the three wise men to the spot where Jesus was born. In any case, call it coincidence or call it fact, the last few years have heralded rather spectacular dirty snowballs to our inner solar system (Lovejoy the year before, Lovejoy and ISON last year and Lovejoy this year). Dim periodic comets are a dime a dozen, and every year many can be spotted with large amateur telescopes. However comets that breach the naked eye barrier (i.e. magnitude 6 and above) are rarer. That is why this is particularly heartening to see.

Anyways, as with all comets, the main aim of most amateurs is to firstly spot the comet, see if it is visible with the naked eye, sketch and shoot the comet. My mission was no different. After hearing news about this celestial visitor, I decided to see it for myself. My first look came the week after Christmas. Weather has been wet since we moved to NorCal. My first clear sky break came two days before Christmas (see Saratoga Gap run report). The comet was already visible, but rather low in the sky. At that time it was just south of Canis Major in the constellation of Puppis. Due to the elevation, I did not bother searching for it while I was at Saratoga Gap. My first look at this comet would come about a week later, on the eve of the eve of new years day. Cracking open the door to the yard, I poked my SkyScanner out to spot the huge fuzzball. While not visible with the naked eye from red zone skies, the comet was plenty bright in my SkyScanner. I also took a sneek peek with the C6. My notes, nice sharp core, very hazy and large coma, similar to another Comet Holmes in 2007. My next plan was to get some CCD images of this lovely tailess comet (well there was a tail, just a very faint one that is not visible to the naked eye).

Fast forward to a week after. The moon was slightly past full now, but still hanging around the evening sky to make a nuisance of itself. I made sure the moon was still hidden behind a wall when I went ahead and image the comet, now found just to the right of Rigel, at the foot of Orion the hunter. The comet seemed even bigger and brighter, but still not naked eye from my red zone, and with no tail. The comet was harder to image than expected as the coma was just so big and bright. My multiple stack exposure above 6 subs (30 seconds each) just over exposed the nuclear and coma region. I settled for about 4 subs. Will have to try again from darker skies as the moon departs the evening sky. Stay tuned..but for now enjoy these images of Comet Lovejoy Q2!