2013r1 20131110 robertson

 visual observation and sketch 
 
Got a sketch of Lovejoy in the early hours of this morning with the 600mm 
Dobsonian, mag 5.6 skies. I could definitely detect a faint wispy tail. The 
coma around the stellar core seemed slightly more extended on the south 
side. 21 Ethos used giving x129 and 46 mins FOV. 
 
Interestingly, I made a sketch with my 12" Mewlon in the early hours of 
Friday morning. Initially I thought I could just detect the faintest wispy 
tail, it the clouded over a bit and when it cleared the transparency was not 
as good with no hint of a tail so I erased it - should have believed my 
initial instinct! 
 
With the 24" using a 22mm Panoptic to fit my 1.25" comet filter, the coma 
was more extended and 'mottled' but tail didn't seem as prominent. With 13mm 
Ethos (x208 and 0.5 deg FOV) and filter coma very large, mottled and almost 
patchy. Under high power the stellar core had a pinpoint nucleus with a 
'fan' shape extending out from it, this in the centre of the much larger 
coma. 
 
It was easy in 7 x 50 bins, easy in 2.4 x 24mm opera glasses and I believe I 
could see it N/E difficult averted vision BUT I knew where it was so not 
sure if N/E visibility or not yet. 
20131110 Andrew Robertson