We got a reasonable view on Tuesday night

Comet to light up southern skies

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/16314205/comet-to-light-up-wa-skies/

A comet brightening Southern Hemisphere skies can be seen from WA for a few more days before it begins to set and becomes visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

Comet Pan-STARRS, named after the Hawaiian telescope it was discovered from in 2011, made its closest approach to Earth on Tuesday, coming within about 160 million kilometres.

Like all comets, Pan-STARRS is a giant melting snowball of frozen gases, rock and dust that spews a tail of dust and gas as it approaches the Sun and heats up.

Astronomy Education Services director Richard Tonello, who photographed Pan-STARRS from Perth for NASA on Tuesday night, said it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity to see it.

“It might return in about 200,000 plus years,” he said.

Tonight and tomorrow are set to be the best nights to see Pan-STARRS before it starts to fade.

Mr Tonello said the comet could be seen in Perth just after sunset, usually about 7.30pm to 7.45pm, very low on the horizon in the west.
“If you get a pair of binoculars and you look out towards the west and you start scanning along that line, just a couple of degrees either side of west, you see a small smudge with a bit of a tail,” he said.

http://blog.astrophotography.com.au/

Been too cloudy here in Brisbane this week :-(

i met mr tonello at astrofest last year. he has some very good pics.

Cloudy over that-away at the moment, but might clear in time.

i may go out into the narrow back street and get a comet alley view.

Well, no comet visible this end. It cleared a little but there was still plenty of cloud, as well as trees and the central highlands in the way.

I might get the ‘scope out a little later on.

“We ain’t seen shit!”

me neither. west isn’t a good direction from my place. too many trees. one of the drawbacks of country living.

Boris said:

me neither. west isn’t a good direction from my place. too many trees. one of the drawbacks of country living.

I tend to regard it as one of the advantages :)

Boris said:

me neither. west isn’t a good direction from my place. too many trees. one of the drawbacks of country living.

West is a good direction for me so far as elevation goes. I can see Kwinana and the industrial strip from my place, but too much light pollution and haze to see anything in the sky. (I use the Cockburn Cement tower aqs the reference point for calibrating the finder scope)

Can’t see anything under Mag 1 in Singapore. True story. Light pollution.

very good Neo.

What sort of kit did you use to take that?

Mr Neo took it – (we share the camera)..

Canon EOS 600D, 100-200 mm telephoto, mounted on ricketty tripod, no cable release or timers set, 4 sec exposure, 400 ISO, 5/6 aperture

Could you see it with the naked eye?