Hardy Tropicals UK

Anyone managed to see it yet?

Might be a chance in the next half hour or so (as at 19.00h on 13 March). Look below right of the crescent moon (approx in line with where the moon faces - note the pic below is for US latitudes, here the Ecliptic is more slanted, less steep)



Cloudy evening forecast on 14th, unfortunately.

Been checking a few times in the last hour, but too much cloud. Seen loads of slow moving shooting stars, though. Oh, that was snow

I was checking, and it was clear, but did not see it

From that diagram I think that my view of the horizon was too obscured.

Well, managed to see it, for about 10 minutes from when the cloud cleared at 19.15 until it dropped below the foreground tree branches, but . . .

WHAT A TOTAL FLOP!!

A tiny dim orangey blob with just the faintest hint of a smear for a tail. And that was as seen through a 20x telescope. Definitely not visible to the naked eye in the still-slightly-light dusk sky.

GREVILLE wrote:Seen loads of slow moving shooting stars, though. Oh, that was snow

Conifers wrote:Well, managed to see it, for about 10 minutes from when the cloud cleared at 19.15 until it dropped below the foreground tree branches, but . . .

You did better than me ... I went up on the roof to try to get a better angle to the horizon. Far too much atmosphere to look through, that low in the sky, I reckon - or is it higher than I judged?

It will rise in the sky over the next week which will help ... and get further from the sun making it dimmer ... which won't

I think Ison will be disappointing too, in the Autumn ... although predicted to be "bright enough to see in broad daylight" I think it's angle of approach will position it far too close to the sun to view

Or just too faint . . . I'd reckon it was about 4th magnitude. It would have been reasonably easy to see IF it was against a black sky, but very tricky against the horizon dusk. One website I read warned it was "more speck than spectacle", and they were right.

Agree with your predictions about November's comet too. There's never yet been any recent comet to come anywhere close to rivalling woodcut illustrations from the 16th and 17th century comet bonanza. I'd like to be able to see one like some of those, with a head the diameter of the full moon and a tail visible across 45° of night sky.