Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

I just wanted to note that my friend Tim Miller and I saw Comet SWAN last night at Spring Valley Nature Reserve right after sunset in the location shown in this chart. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but it was a decent binocular object. Our 10″ Newtonian Dob gave a better view of the nucleus, which was very bright in the center with a haze around it, but no noticeable tail. The tail also was not apparent in binoculars either. The sky wasn’t as dark as it should have been if we expected to see a tail because cities, and hence, light pollution, from the northeast and northwest are growing. I’m glad we got our chance to see it because the next several nights are supposed to be rainy and the comet is expected to dim by the time that’s over. If you have access to a dark sky tonight or tomorrow night and you can follow the chart, I recommend seeing the comet.

All this reminds me, Comet Hale-Bopp was almost 10 years ago - spring of 1997. Wow! That’s hard to believe. I still have pictures I took of that comet, which were not bad for a first effort. I gave a bunch away at the time and they were very popular. I was surprised at how many people wanted to give photos of the comet to others as a gift, and even though I didn’t charge for the pictures, I broke even because some people insisted that they pay me. An astronomical rule of thumb is that a good naked eye comet comes along every decade or so, and it seems like we’re due. Hopefully when the next comet comes around, I’ll have the experience and equipment to get some really good pictures.