[Chaos-l] Comet SWAN

[Mark South]

Robert, Greg, and I at MASP got a chance to see Comet SWAN and it was beautiful!  It had a bright nucleus but almost no comet tail...easily found in a finderscope.  It seemed to me that a slight tail could be seen northward of the nucleus if you "jiggled" the scope or used averted vision.  
At the time it was near Beta Bootes.   Tonight it looks to be near M13--just to the SW by 3 degrees or so.  Sunday it'll be near Zeta Her just SE of M13-- a low power eyepiece would be sweet or binos.   
 Has anyone seen a comet tail on SWAN?  What are your observations?
Mark

Mark South
500 Market Street Ste. 204
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
http://web.mac.com/md_south

 
On Friday, October 27, 2006, at 11:40AM, "Stewart-Taylor, Jon" <jstewart at misg.com> wrote:
>Hi all.  Comet Swan was mentioned briefly recently, but it's apparently
>undergoing a sudden increase in brightness.  Wednesday it was mag 4.5,
>visible to the unaided eye under dark conditions, and easily visible
>using binoculars under most suburban conditions.  An article with finder
>chart for the next few days is at:
>
>http://skytonight.com/observing/home/4477131.html
>
>The weather for tomorrow is questionable, but Sunday looks pretty good.
>The moon is going to be an increasing problem, though: first quarter is
>Sunday night, and the comet is in Hercules.
>
>J.
>-- 
>Jon Stewart-Taylor: joncst at earthlink.net; 919-967-2912	
>Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://rtpnet.org/chaos/	
>Light pollution information: http://www.ncdarksky.org/
>
>
>
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