I wanted to take photograph the Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday’s Green Smudge Comet
Lulin.  I wanted to show what Comet Lulin might look like with out a big
telescopic view,  from a city or slightly darker area to simulate what most
would see as the comet comes closest to Earth on 2/24. I tried a couple of weeks
ago but no success. Last night 2/21, I tried again at Powell Observatory,
Louisburg, KS just south of Kansas City.

 Some people said that the comet could now be spotted with binoculars and even
naked eye! And I saw it had brightened and could see both these views as well as
in our 30 inch telescope.

0n 2/21/09 returning back to Powell, I saw the brightening comet. The nucleus
was brighter and so was the rest of the comet coma.  It is moving fast away
from the Sun and we could see it moving across the field of the telescope. The
coma was bigger and one side (left) was brighter. We could see easily with our
binoculars and could not see it (naked eye)  as a smudge below Saturn.

This time I was successful using my Canon Rebel XT with 55mm lens, ASA 800 at 30
seconds f/6.3.
You can  see the smudge comet (6 magnitude)  in the photo  just under ) the
3.56 star Zanijava which is just below the brighter planet Saturn (mag 0.56) to
the left of the bright blue star in the constellation Leo Denabola.

see photo at my blogs
Comet Observers Blog:
http://cometobservers.blogspot.com/

E.O.A.S. (EarthAtmosphere and Space) Blog -
http://eoas-dr
eric1kansas.blogspot.com/

Black Sun eclipse Blog
http://blacksuneclipse.blogspot.com/

Since it was 11:00 CT, the comet was still coming up from the East horizon and
still drank in some of the lights from the horizon during the exposure. Still I
was glad to image it . If I could see it  with naked eye and binoculars and
image it without a big lens (my next attempt), you can too!

more info:
Comet Lulin, discovered at an observatory in China , is now brightening for a
date to be nearest Earth on Feb 24. Now at mag 6 we hope it will brighten to
5th. I saw it with our 30 inch telescope a couple of weeks ago using our Powell
Observatory’s 39 inch telescope.  Its greenish colored  and was difficult to
see. The nucleus was even more difficult to see.

This photo on APOD is like what I saw of it and sketched from last week. A
tenuous circle like cloudlike coma with viewable but difficult to see nucleus
right in the center.

2/21-22/2009
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
if not 2/21 look at archivescan't find it? use the archives and go to earlier
date other then this one

Also there are several nice photos on spaceweather.com

Also nice article and more pics at
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/090220-comet-lulin.html


It’s ts Lincoln’s and Darwin’s birthday on the same day. Here is an
interesting article about

also
Lincoln and Astrtonomy
I don't know if you get Sky and Telescope. I was looking at saw this interesting
article about Lincoln and Ast
ronomy. A synopsis is at this link ( if you don't have a copy you can see  it
in a library or buy a copy or have a peak at it in a book store).
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/skytel/beyondthepage/37998964.html

PS if you have some photos of Comet Lulin let me know and I will post your photo
or links on my Comet Observer Blog

Dr. Eric Flescher (kcstarguy@...), Olathe, KS:  Lat 38.834, Lon
-94.778:   E.O.A.S. (Earth, Oceans, Atmosphere and Space) instructor , Johnson
County Community College, Overland Park, KS :Comet Observers Award
Chair/Coordinator- Astronomical  League / Astronomical Society of Kansas, KC,
MO-Louisburg,KS: http://www.astroleague.org/al/obsclubs/comet/comet.htm:  Comet
Observers Blog: http://cometobservers.blogspot.com/:Subscribe to Comet Observers
newsletter (send your email to):CometObserversAwardAL-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
: Black Sun eclipse Blog <http://blacksuneclipse.blogspot.com/> : E.O.A.S.
(Earth, Oceans, Atmosphere and Space) Blog
-<http://eoas-dreric1kansas.blogspot.com/
>:State of Kansas-JPL NASA Solar  System Ambassador





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