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(meteorobs) Hale-Bopp twice in a night
With sincere apologies to Trond;
Well I've finally joined the ranks of the twice a nighters. I caught
the comet in the evening about 40 minutes after sunset in New Jersey, and
in a bit of poetic repayment for the horrible conditions lately,
I actually saw it for the first time in the evening during a moderatly
heavy snow shower! Surely that's worth some special RASC or Nordic award
:-> It was mich higher and brighter than I expected considering the sky
brightness, rows of cumulus clouds spewing the snow, etc. This was aboot
<g>
6:30 PM local time. I could not estimate the brightess...the only objects
brighter were Sirius, Procyon, and Mars which were behind my back...if I
swung the binoculars that far I'd have gotten dizzy and fallen to the
Railroad tracks below. Besides, the clouds, virga., and snow were working
me over pretty good.
Observed it through all these for an hour until the clouds swallowed it up
3 degrees or so above the horizon. It was interesting seeing the tail going
to the right, instead of the morning view streaming upward.
Set alarm for 4AM. Woke up. Snowing really hard, set alarm for 5AM. forgot
to turn it on. Woke at 5:40 to rapidly brightening partly clear sky. Dashed
outside to start up the dob, which I left in the car overnight to be cool
<g>. Got about 2 minutes to peek, seeing jet and 2 shells on the sunward
side, but didn't even have time to reach for the higher power
eypiece....sky was too light.
So that's it folks....this is soon to be a person on the street
comet...Everyone will see it but Nancy\
Wayne, awash in wonderments, and flakey
Wayne