Comet SWAN - Lucky Again 27 October

Hi all, I'm riding my luck alright, I managed to get a hole in the clouds that lasted for a whole 2 minutes! before clouding in again. Comet SWAN has come closer to M13, as it was a bit furthur away last night, and is it just me or has it's tail lengthened? It must be about 4 degrees long, and maybe it has faded slightly?
From hard working (and really riding his luck) Keith..

Wow ... you can really see the speed this thing is moving and the sheer size of it's tail from this image, great stuff!

It does look dimmer but that may just be because your conditions were not as good I guess?

Bart.

Wonderful image Keith, I love it .Can you ID the two bright stars to the SE of SWAN close together?

I have done a sketch tonight from Bray at 18:18 UT in my 15X70 Celestrons and am trying to ID.

I did a second sketch at 18:47 UT in my Sky Watcher 200mm with a 35mm eyepiece, in neither case could I see a tail according to Metroblue CSC seeing is only 1 this evening with high values for the jetstream.

Your photograph is so clear !!!! What time did you take it and from where , I can see several stars in your image that I have in my sketch:-)

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

It does look dimmer but that may just be because your conditions were not as good I guess?

Yeah, conditions were very poor, lots of low cloud and damp! So I could'nt get a long enough exposure to bring out more detail . Pity.

Can you ID the two bright stars to the SE of SWAN close together?

They are v1 and 2 herculis, so the map says, at about magnitude 5 each.
I took it at 1910UT last night, about an hour before you saw it.

Keith..

Wonderful image Keith, I love it .Can you ID the two bright stars to the SE of SWAN close together?

Hi Dee,

The two stars are v1 - BSC 20 Nu1 CrB and v2 - BSC 21 Nu2 CrB just inside Corona Borealis, while C/2006 M4 (SWAN) is just inside Hurcules.

v1 is mag 5.20 and v2 is mag 5.39 according to Cartes du Ciel.

Beautiful shot Keith - keep 'em coming!

Philip.

Thanks for the star ID's I will work out the rest now.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org