On Aug 25, 5:49*am, Marty wrote:
After seeing that it was a clear night, and the moon wasn't
interfering yet, I ran out for another look at Comet Garradd. *I
hadn't seen it since my last effort when it was just creeping away
from Pegasus' nose, and now it was buzzing under the tip of
Sagitta... *I didn't take the time to dark adapt, and while I'm not
nearly as cursed by light pollution as most people, my situation
hasn't gotten any better over the years. *Also, I don't think my eyes
pick up dim objects quite as well as they did when a younger man was
using them. *I studied the chart (http://cometchasing.skyhound.com/)
carefully...
* * *When I got out to look at about 10:00pm CDT, I spent a few
minutes looking around at the constellations and bright "M" objects to
let my eyes adapt just a bit. *Not a bad evening... *66 F, a few
locusts chirping, and clear skies. *Then I swung my binocs up to
Sagitta and took a look. *I found a blur in about the right place, but
not EXACTLY in the right place. *I was a little confused and
frustrated. *I came in and checked the chart again, and then went out
and looked again. *There was the little fuzzball, but still, it wasn't
quite where it should be... *Was I seeing some of the background
confusion in the starclouds of the Milky Way, and missing the comet?
I went back in and checked the chart again... *AH HA... *The tick
marks on the chart weren't for 0 hours Universal Time, but for 13
hours on the 24th and 8 hours on the 25th... *OK, so I'm a better
observer than a chart reader... *THAT'S it... *I'm a better observer
than a chart reader... *That works....

Marty



Do yourself a favor Marty and match Kepler's representation of the
motion of Mars against the background constellations with modern time
lapse footage of the motion of both the Earth and Mars -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...retrograde.jpg

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080511.html

Running the cursor over the APOD image you will see Mars and the Earth
move through the Gemini and Taurus field of stars in our common orbit
around the Sun,there is an aid which matches the outer ring of symbols
with the respective constellations in Kepler's representation,the
second most important in all astronomy -

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._signs.svg.png

You can also enjoy the calendar based on homcentric Ra/Dec system
which keeps everything moving in stellar circumpolar motion but the
real satisfaction is watching the planets and comets move against the
stationary stellar background.All it takes is a little compromise to
inherit both astronomical worlds Marty but in dumping everything into
right ascension,you inherit neither.