Here's another update on Comet Hyukatake as seen from western Maryland.
We went out about 9:30 pm and looked at the comet through 8x56 binoculars
and through an 8-inch Celestron Ultima 8 with an f6.3 focal length
reducer. The comet was located near the star Seginus in Bootes.
To the naked eye, the comet has a tail that can be seen with averted
vision. In the binoculars, the tail can be seen extending a few degrees
from the head. The head of the comet showed some structure. In the
telescope, a sharp streamer was clearly visible extending from the
nucleus. (Even at f6.3, the head of the comet nearly fills the field
of view of the telescope, so we couln't see the tail.)
I also took some tripod-mounted pictures of the comet on Konica 3200
film. It was too cold to try to get my telescope aligned to try a
piggyback picture, but if the sky is clear tomorrow I'll give that a
try. The comet will also be higher, making photography a little easier.
Steve Luzader
Frostburg, MD
sluzader@fre.fsu.umd.edu