Behold, Comet 103P/Hartley 2

The cover of this month's S&T mentioned a visible comet was currently passing through Perseus so I decided to try to see it from our dark MO skies before leaving for the light polluted valley. I went out last night about 11:00 after we got back from Nashville and saw a dim grey blob about 25' in diameter about where S&T's chart said it should be. It was barely visible in my 7x50's but clear in my 8" dob. Tonight I went out about 8:30 with the moon still pretty high and about a quarter moon so the sky was pretty bright but cloudless and still. I was able to see 4th mag Eta Per unaided and most of the brighter stars of Perseus. The blob I saw last night was gone but seemed to be located between a pair of 7th mag stars near NGC 1444. A serpentine asterism of dim stars leading to a pair of stellar points that included 1444 along with Lam Per and 43 per were also in the field of my 7x50's. Current orbital elements for 103P/Hartley 2 placed it right on top of the stellar companion to NGC1444 but I didn't see any fuzzy blob there. The stellar companion was identified by CdC as HD 23800, a 7th mag star. If nothing else, I was able to figure out how to enter the orbital elements for a comet. The main 'trick' was to construct CdC's Perihelion T figure from several values in the orbital elements: 20101028.2598 comes from T 2010 Oct. 28.2598 TT. If all goes well, I'll try to continue to monitor Hartley 2 down in the valley. This one isn't as impressive as some in the past but comets are always cool!