observe Comet Hartley and to Declan Molloy for bringing his 16 inch dob
along, a lovely scope built by Michael. What a great evening, I enjoy comets even if they are sometimes rather faint , hope to see it again.
Two sketches showing the movement of Comet Hartley 2 in Perseus.
103P Hartley 2 16inch dob, 20 mm eyepiece, FL 1830mm, 91X Oct 11th 2010 , 20:45 UT, Seeing good to start. Double Cluster and M31 naked eye objects . Bortle Dark Scale 4
I observed the nucleus as being a dull white colour , not round , a bit elongated . The coma seemed to me to have an inner brighter shell surrounded by an outer almost invisible very diffuse area. The coma appeared to be slightly bow shock shaped but the coma as a whole was very ill defined .
In both 16 inch dob sketches , stars were visible through the inner coma. North is up in video.
The three stars in a row visible in both sketches are mag+11.2, +11.2, +12.2 in order running towards the comet.
No green colour visible at all. Seeing deteoriated between sketches.
Sketches were done at the eyepiece , with a white gel pen , conte and pastel on black paper.