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Date: 28 Aug 2006 00:59:16
From: Robert Sheaffer
Subject: Comet 177P/Bradford
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I observed this comet Saturday night (Aug 27 UT) in a Celestron GPS-11,
in a 38mm wide-field eyepiece (80x). It was quite high up in the sky,
near Mu Draconis. No tail was seen, and no details, just a faint fuzzy.
Still, it was not difficult to see, from a reasonably dark site about 75
miles east of San Diego.
The Minor Planet Ephemeris center
(http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html ) will tell you that it
is Mag. 14. Don't believe them! It's much brighter than that. It's hard
to estimate the brightness of extended objects, but it can't be fainter
than 10, possibly even 9.
Robert Sheaffer
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Date: 28 Aug 2006 09:21:46
From:
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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Robert Sheaffer wrote:
> I observed this comet Saturday night (Aug 27 UT) in a Celestron GPS-11,
> in a 38mm wide-field eyepiece (80x). It was quite high up in the sky,
> near Mu Draconis. No tail was seen, and no details, just a faint fuzzy.
> Still, it was not difficult to see, from a reasonably dark site about 75
> miles east of San Diego.
Actually its name is 177P/Barnard.
Glad you could see it; I could not find it from my home, where there is
too much light pollution (NELM ~4.0) to see such a diffuse object.
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Date: 29 Aug 2006 22:41:04
From: Robert Sheaffer
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Barnard
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allisonki@IGNmail.com wrote:
> Actually its name is 177P/Barnard.
>
> Glad you could see it; I could not find it from my home, where there is
> too much light pollution (NELM ~4.0) to see such a diffuse object.
>
Oops.
Yes, you probably need darks skies to see it.
Robert
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Date: 28 Aug 2006 12:27:45
From: Lumpy Darkness
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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CNJ999 wrote:
> In fact, Comet 177P/Barnard is currently being reported as 8th
> magnitude by experience comet observers. Very large in size and
> essentially diffuse, it is not an easy object, in spite of its high
> total magnitude, except under fairly dark skies.
>
Here's my report from Friday night.
>From Willow Springs. Steve Gottlieb brought a finder chart and we saw
it was an easy hop from Beta and Gamma Draconis toward Hercules. It was
a cinch to find.
Using a 20 Nagler in my 18" f/4.5 Dob, which gives a 48 arcminute view
at 103X, I was very surprised at the size and brightness of the coma.
It was not so bright that it could be seen (at least not easily) in my
70mm finder. But in the eyepiece the coma was quite large and
immediately obvious. At 103X it looked like a large unresolved globular
cluster. Even with increased magnificatons, up to 294X, there was
little additional detail to pull out - the only thing that changed was
some brightening toward the center of the core.
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Date: 28 Aug 2006 12:23:06
From: CNJ999
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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In fact, Comet 177P/Barnard is currently being reported as 8th
magnitude by experience comet observers. Very large in size and
essentially diffuse, it is not an easy object, in spite of its high
total magnitude, except under fairly dark skies.
CNJ999
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Date: 29 Aug 2006 05:37:17
From: Mark Smith
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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I was up at TDS on Saturday as well and viewed it as well in a 9.25
with a 35mm Panoptic. Bright and very easy to find (as opposed to
4P/Faye which I also found that night). I jotted down a slight
elongation to the SSE, but I may have imagined it. Very diffuse.
Mark Smith
On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:59:16 -0700, Robert Sheaffer
<roberto@debunker.com > wrote:
>
>I observed this comet Saturday night (Aug 27 UT) in a Celestron GPS-11,
>in a 38mm wide-field eyepiece (80x). It was quite high up in the sky,
>near Mu Draconis. No tail was seen, and no details, just a faint fuzzy.
>Still, it was not difficult to see, from a reasonably dark site about 75
>miles east of San Diego.
>
>The Minor Planet Ephemeris center
>(http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html ) will tell you that it
>is Mag. 14. Don't believe them! It's much brighter than that. It's hard
>to estimate the brightness of extended objects, but it can't be fainter
>than 10, possibly even 9.
>
> Robert Sheaffer
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Date: 29 Aug 2006 10:06:36
From: John Banister
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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I observed on Sep 24 in a 10" newt at 60X and found it to be round and
bright with just a hint of a nucleus with averted vision. I did find that a
light polution filter (Orion Skyglow) enhanced the view. An OIII did not
(as expected).
-John
"Mark Smith" <emarksmi@san.rr.com > wrote in message
news:ngk7f2lop0ebg0ssvj7ibkljquu8nq8c99@4ax.com...
>I was up at TDS on Saturday as well and viewed it as well in a 9.25
> with a 35mm Panoptic. Bright and very easy to find (as opposed to
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Date: 29 Aug 2006 20:52:13
From: Willie R. Meghar
Subject: Re: Comet 177P/Bradford
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I suspect the header is in error: Shouldn't it read "Comet
177P/Barnard"?
Under a sky with a ZNELM of 6.5 I observed Comet 177P/Barnard last
night with 20x80 binoculars as well as with a 13cm refractor. I
settled on a magnification of 76x with the refractor.
The comet was easily seen with both instruments. In the refractor the
comet appeared to be round with the periphery blending in smoothly
with the background sky. No central condensation was noticed. There
was a gradual, slight brightening from the outer edge toward the
center of the object.
The comet was positioned between two nearby stars. In the time it
took to sketch the comet and surrounding star field the comet's motion
against the background star field was enough to notice.
Overall, this comet is a bit on the boring side. With other observing
projects on the burner, I had forgotten about 177P/Barnard since
making an earlier observation; but thanks to this thread, I decided
to take the time for another look.
Willie R. Meghar
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Date: 30 Aug 2006 10:43:01
From: Willie R. Meghar
Subject: Comet 177P/Barnard (was Comet 177P/Bradford)
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I finally got around to matching the star field in my sketch with the
same field in the GSC -- thus permitting a reasonably accurate
estimate of the coma diameter *as it appeared to me* with the 5.1 inch
refractor at 76x.
Later, on the same night as this observation I made transit timings of
Zeta Aquarii through 6 new Orion Highlight Plossls -- alone as well as
with 2x and 2.8x Barlows -- thus allowing for accurate FOVs to be
computed for all eyepiece configurations. Knowing the true FOVs helps
in matching eyepiece star fields with GSC star fields, etc. Field Of
View measurements are something I *always* do when I get new
eyepieces.
Anyway, to get to the point, My estimated coma diameter for Comet
177P/Barnard at 15:16 on August 29th 2006 (UT) was 5 arc minutes.
I noticed on the following site:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/icq/CometMags.html
that recent coma diameter estimates for this comet have tended to be
around 11' with magnitude estimates ranging between 8th and 9th
magnitude.
I don't have suitable charts to make my own magnitude estimates.
Willie R. Meghar
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