Hello astronomy fans. I'm going to take another stab at PANSTARRS if the weather stays clear. A few comments on last night:
1. The coma of PANSTARRS was well defined, and bright. Some comets have a real fuzzball leading the charge, but this one was crisp. It reminded me of Mars in size, but not in color.
2. The tail was broad and short. I know that the pictures that have been published so far show a longer, slimmer tail, but that is not evident to the eye through binoculars or a telescope.
3. The comet does not take high power well, at least not last night. The best looks that Steve and I got were 40X for me (2" 50mm Vixen on a Celestron 8' SCT – 2000mm focal length) and for Steve a 25mm inch and a quarter eyepiece on his Orion Classic 8" Dobsonian – 1200mm focal length. (48X) Please correct me if I got this wrong.
Good luck tonight, and hope for a good Sat. night at EB.