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03/08/06
Comète Pojmanski
J'ai observé le géocroiseur 2000 PN9 la nuit dernière, et la comète Pojmanski ce matin depuis le POR. Rapports et photos:
Last night (07/03) at POR was fantastic!
Manfred came for the eclipse rehearsal (hardware refurbishing, programming of eclipse sequences). Since weather was clear (in spite of intermittent cirrus clouds and interfering moonshine), I took Ritter the C11 to the edge of the snow-covered terrace, the only location from where we could see minor planet 2000 PN9 before it sinks behind the house's roof (snow-covered too). I readily found the compact asterism comprising SAO 4840 of 4.8 mag and SAO 4849 of 7.3 mag, then the minor planet, brighter than expected (I'd guess 11.5 mag) rushing in the gap between those two stars, just on schedule (1.5' away from SAO 4849 at 21:16 UTC). Visually at x233, the apparent motion could be seen after some seconds only. You have to believe us, though - the telescope's position was too uncomfortable and hazardous for taking pictures.
This morning at about 04:10 UTC, I tried Comet Pojmanski visually with 10x70 binos. It was just emerging from the smoke of the neighbours' chimneys, thus difficult to observe in detail. Very compact, maybe 5.5-6.0 mag, no tail visible. There was a brief compromise in the observing conditions, with the comet high enough but still a reasonably dark sky, around 04:30 UTC. I took some images then.
Jean-Luc
Last night (07/03) at POR was fantastic!
Manfred came for the eclipse rehearsal (hardware refurbishing, programming of eclipse sequences). Since weather was clear (in spite of intermittent cirrus clouds and interfering moonshine), I took Ritter the C11 to the edge of the snow-covered terrace, the only location from where we could see minor planet 2000 PN9 before it sinks behind the house's roof (snow-covered too). I readily found the compact asterism comprising SAO 4840 of 4.8 mag and SAO 4849 of 7.3 mag, then the minor planet, brighter than expected (I'd guess 11.5 mag) rushing in the gap between those two stars, just on schedule (1.5' away from SAO 4849 at 21:16 UTC). Visually at x233, the apparent motion could be seen after some seconds only. You have to believe us, though - the telescope's position was too uncomfortable and hazardous for taking pictures.
This morning at about 04:10 UTC, I tried Comet Pojmanski visually with 10x70 binos. It was just emerging from the smoke of the neighbours' chimneys, thus difficult to observe in detail. Very compact, maybe 5.5-6.0 mag, no tail visible. There was a brief compromise in the observing conditions, with the comet high enough but still a reasonably dark sky, around 04:30 UTC. I took some images then.
Jean-Luc
