No expert nor astronomer here, but did anyone else see the Comet this morning? I had heard about it but wasn't planning to look for it because all previous comets in my 69 years have been disappointing dull smudges or blurs even when viewed with some decent telescopes. Interesting to see but optically underwhelming for me.
This morning conditions and (coincidental) timing were near perfect. At 6:11 a.m CST in the Houston Texas area I walked out and glanced up to the NE. There I saw a very large and intensely bright object. It looked like a searchlight on an oncoming helicopter but was a rich emerald green. My first impression was it had to be an exceptional view of Venus. I stared at it alternating between naked eye and my SV FP 10x32.
By 6:16 a.m. it struck me. This had to the Comet. Relatively low heat and humidity but with patchy scattered/mixed dense and light cloud cover. It was clearly visible even through light sections of the clouds. In the clear, it was by far the largest and brightest object I have ever seen in the night sky except for the moon. Two planets were also visible higher overhead (I haven't check this maybe Jupiter and Mars?). In both size and brightness, the Comet exceeded the planets by at least an order of magnitude, as a layman's guesstimate. It was clearly visible until 7:36 a.m. when it became completely obscured by heavy cloud cover. I never saw a tail, but with the SW it appeared to have a rhomboid shape, a bit more square than elongated.
Predictions as recently as 22 hours before had been less than optimistic regarding viewing conditions but with a definite "with comets, you never know".
In between, a red shouldered hawk flew above me. Given the angle of light its belly feathers looked like copper, as bright as any hummingbird's.
I'm still tingling. If I'm way off base on the Comet please let me know.
Mike
This morning conditions and (coincidental) timing were near perfect. At 6:11 a.m CST in the Houston Texas area I walked out and glanced up to the NE. There I saw a very large and intensely bright object. It looked like a searchlight on an oncoming helicopter but was a rich emerald green. My first impression was it had to be an exceptional view of Venus. I stared at it alternating between naked eye and my SV FP 10x32.
By 6:16 a.m. it struck me. This had to the Comet. Relatively low heat and humidity but with patchy scattered/mixed dense and light cloud cover. It was clearly visible even through light sections of the clouds. In the clear, it was by far the largest and brightest object I have ever seen in the night sky except for the moon. Two planets were also visible higher overhead (I haven't check this maybe Jupiter and Mars?). In both size and brightness, the Comet exceeded the planets by at least an order of magnitude, as a layman's guesstimate. It was clearly visible until 7:36 a.m. when it became completely obscured by heavy cloud cover. I never saw a tail, but with the SW it appeared to have a rhomboid shape, a bit more square than elongated.
Predictions as recently as 22 hours before had been less than optimistic regarding viewing conditions but with a definite "with comets, you never know".
In between, a red shouldered hawk flew above me. Given the angle of light its belly feathers looked like copper, as bright as any hummingbird's.
I'm still tingling. If I'm way off base on the Comet please let me know.
Mike
