Comet hunting in Glencullen 4/5 .5.07

So John Murphy Michael Murphy and I headded off to track down Comet Lovejoy probobly more in hope then anything else. It was a beautyful clear night with no moon rising until 00.30 so it would be one of our last chances to see it.

Initial results were disapointing as when we plugged the co-ordinates into both the Michael's Celestron c11 and the LX90 there did not seem to be anything there. Bummer!!! :roll:

We had nearly given up when I decided to hook up my scope to the laptop where I had my copy of Cartes de Ciel. I had previously loaded down comet lovejoy to this programe so it showed exactly where it should have been on the screen. Clicked on the comet on the screen with the mouse and then clicked GOTO. Off the scope slewed with a jolt. After the beep took a quick look and there it was right dead centre of the field of view. It appeared as a very defuse glow in the eyepiece but definately visable. No real tail was decernanble so no way as cool as the comets we saw last year. But to have bagged it nonetheless was great

John Murphy took a shot through his DSLR so I am hopfully we got someting even if just a smudge.

Good work guys, it's nice to know that you didn't give up after initial disappointment and bagged your target.

Paul