2017t2 20190831 arobertson

Finally got a visual on C/2017 T2 this morning at 3am BST through the 60 cms scope. Was at 31 degs altitude at the time, skies very good, low humidity, good transparency (NELM of 5.5+) seeing Ant III. Sent the scope to it and immediately saw it direct vision as a small round fuzz with a 13mm Ethos giving x208. Much better view and sketch made with 8mm Ethos giving x340. Comet filter killed it off. Had a slightly brighter centre.

 

Made a positional sketch and de-focusing found it to be about as bright as star ‘A’, much fainter than star ‘B’. Checking my software this morning Sky Tools 3 gives its position spot on to my sketch and ‘A’ as GSC 1847-1468 mag 14.3 (Megastar gives m13.9). ST3 gives ‘B’ as GSC 1847-0075 m12.4 (megastar mag 11.9) I generally find megastar more accurate on magnitudes so:

 

I would estimate its visual magnitude at mag 13.9.

 

Andrew