Comet LINEAR - 12 July 2007

Date: 12 July 2007 U.T.

Time: 6:32 U.T.

Telescope: 30cm Newtonian

Magnification: 90x

Seeing: Fair

NELM: 6.5

Temperature: +58 F (+14 C)

After the previous night's look at C/2006VZ13 LINEAR with binoculars I decided to have a go at it with a telescope.

In the above sketch South is up and West is to the left. I experimented with magnifications from 60x to 120x before settling on 90x as my preferred magnification for this comet. I worked on the sketch for 20 minutes while observing the comet; but the comet's position was "frozen" (in relation to the stars) at 6:32 U.T.

For those unfamiliar with comets, the stars in the vicinity of the comet in the above sketch are different from those seen on the previous night's sketch. This is because comets are solar system objects that are moving in orbits around our central star (the Sun). They appear to slowly move against the background stars. It can take seconds, minutes, or hours before one notices the motion - depending on the comet, its distance from the Earth and Sun, and the solar system geometry of the line of sight.

This particular comet looks pretty much like a "generic" telescopic comet. There's no easily visible tail. The comet simply looks like a circular, fuzzy, disk of light with a brighter central region. This is what most telescopic (and binocular) comets look like.