On 25/08/2011 04:49, 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

If the skies are clear tonight (Fri Aug 26), 2009 P1 (Garradd) will be
within 10 arcmins of M71 at around 22:00 UTC, so should be fairly easy
to find. I've been waiting to image this all week - guess what?.. yes,
raining now and not expected to stop for ~24h (of course.)
--
Rob