Graham Wolf:- (former professional astronomer) writes...
I've had no trouble visually locating C/2007N3 Lulin on a regular (almost daily basis) since New Year's day 2009. Here in New Zealand, it's been a steadily brightening binocular object in the low Eastern morning sky about an hour before dawn onset.
It's been moving steadily out of the "head" of Scorpius, and through upper Libra, towards Spica in Virgo.
On Feb 6th (Waitangi Day/ NZ National Day), Lulin was within 1 deg of Alpha Librae (itself a telescopic "double star"). My latest observation:- made on Feb 8th at 4am NZDT (13 hours ahead of GMT), placed the comet in 10x 90 Sakura binoculars some 3 deg left and 1 degree above this star. By using 28 Librae (Mv 6.15), M4 in Scorpius (Mv 6.3) and some Mv 4 - 9 stars around the AAVSO sequence for AN Virginis (near Lamda Virg), I made the following measurements. My Sakura Binoculars have a 5 deg FOV (they can just fit in the short arm of the Southertn Cross).
Mv 5.8, DC=6, Coma ~ 8', tail ~ 10' Zenith Limiting Magnitude +5.0
In my portable 11.5cm f7.8 Newtonian at 36x and 72x, the coma was found (by the "drift method") to be
8' x 6' elongated with a 12' tail.
With (mild) averted vision, I could also see CometLulin in my 6x30 "home-brew" finderscope!
The comet underwent an apparent outburst some 4 days ago, rising nearly a full 1/2 Mv overnight, and strongly condensing from a DC of 6 to DC 8. I also observed a faint tail outburst on Feb 4th UT, that appears to have been a tail disconnection event (shades of P/1 Halley in 1986)!
Overnight rain (continuing today) meant I was unable to observe this morning's Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, nor Comet Lulin. The Full Moon now sets about two hours after dawn (bleaching out the comet). I therefore intend to make my first naked eye observations of Lulin in about 7-10 days when the Lunar pollution is much less severe.
Monday, February 9, 2009
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