73P Fragment C With Naked Eye!

Hi all

73P/ SW3 fragments C and B were lovely telescopic objects last night. I could see them both very easily in my 10X50 binos. C was elongated however B looked easier with more of an oval shape with the bright CC observed. At 00.50 UT when Hercules was nearly at the Zenith i could clearly see fragment C with the naked eye as a fuzzy patch of light!! At first i seen it with averted vision then several times with direct vision...the comet was unmistakable! Perhaps the recent visual magnitude estimates of C have been on the conservative side and underestimated?

Can someone else have ago tonight?

I'm in the UK at the moment, and was out last night in a field in Somerset, where I was also able to spot C & B easily in Corona Borealis using my 10x50s. I could make out the elongated shape of the comas of both fragments quite easily.

So there I was standing in this field, having a look at the comet fragments and M13 with the binocs, when I heard this loud rumbling coming out of the darkness... a large herd of cattle in full stampede towards me!! I had just enough time to get back over the turnstile, at which point I turned around to see the herd of about 40 cattle thundering over the spot where I had been standing just seconds earlier! Talk about risking life and limb to catch a couple of faint fuzzies...

You could have been fragmented! Amateur astronomy would have suffered a major loss.

You could have been fragmented! Amateur astronomy would have suffered a major loss.

I'm not so sure of that :roll:

Would that have been a Darwin award then ?

Thats a close shave Paul and a lot of effort to see two fuzzie spots.

Has anyone else observed C with the naked eye yet?