Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Sat, 06/13/2015 - 06:00
I was estimating R Cam a few minutes ago and saw a faint fuzzy - about halfway between Alpha and Beta UMi. Visible in binoculars. I do not have a list of visible comets available.
I think it is comet lovejoy... I'll go take a look...
I looked up the path, and the position for the 12th is right where i saw it - just north of the halfway point between polaris and Beta UMi.
Yup, William, that most definitely was C/Lovejoy that you saw. I'm just a bit surprised, however, by your decription of the object as a "faint fuzzy" unless you were using the term as it generic form for covering any and all diffuse objects regardless of brightness. Comet Lovejoy is actually about magnitude +8.0 as seen with large binoculars currently, implying that its telescopic appearance should be almost as bright looking, i.e.rather considerable for a telescopic comet. Just what size telescope were you using?
J.Bortle (BRJ)
I spotted it in 15x70 binoculars to start with. Since R Cam is a regular object on my list, I was baffled for a moment. I turned a 6" refractor on it a few minutes later. It turns out the transparency here was not so great last night. I could not see the mag 12.6 comparison star next to Z UMi, which was actually in the same field as the comet. So it was easily visible, but not spectacular.
I was too tired to reply last night, but tried to scan for Lovejoy with my 20 x 70's without success. Normally I'd use my pair of 10 x 50's for such a task, but it is currently missing :( I'll try again tonight. The comet must be a few A. U. from the sun by now. Could you see anything of the tail?
kind of an elongated patch. There was a pair of faint stars at the edge, which may have contributed to that.