2008
Sat, Feb 9
Today the sky cleared up finally after being cloudy or rainy for a rather long term this year. I stayed at my grandparents' to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Having had the supper, I went to observe 8P/Tuttle with my 15x50 binoculars. I became to despair of seeking the comet as it was situated in the area strongly interfered by city lights. To make matters worse, I was overcasted as soon as I began my search, only finding several stars nearby. I could do nothing but go back studying.
Tue-Wed, Jan 1-2
The
temperture dropped to only 8 Celsius early in the morning but the sky was in a
rather perfect condition with a naked LM 4.0 around zenith, in spite of the
devil strong light nearby and the distant flash projectors for celebrating the
arrival of New Year 2008. At about 1:00, on Jan 1, I tried to observe comet
8P/Tuttle, at the 6th magnitude, according to the majority of
reports from foreign countries, with my refractor. However, I was too late to
catch the comet for it was settling down in an area where it was strongly
interfered by city lights. Nothing could be seen in the right field except some
faint stars. I did not observe comet 17P/Holmes this time.
Thus I decided to made another observation at night. It took me within a minute to point to the predicted area with my refractor with 28x. Fortunately, the distant projectors was not on this time and I saw a very fuzzy object in the field after taking couples of breaths. As demonstrating the reality of the object, I convinced myself of finding comet 8P. The comet seemed round with a moderate condensation, DC=3. But except for these, no more details could be observed due to strong city lights.
At about 0:15, I completed my observation with the distant flash projectors just on.