Comet C/2012 K1

I decided to haul out the big gun tonight and go after that dim comet I tried to see in binoculars a couple of nights ago, C/2012 K1.  It had moved a bit but was still near the handle of the big dipper and high in the sky, almost too high for my 8" dob.  Rather than stand on my head to use the red dot finder, I used my green laser pointer instead and it worked beautifully. A quick point, fine tune with the 9x50 and bingo, right on target and definitely a comet.  I could see the coma nicely and it even sported what appeared to be a small tail.  I would say it compared well in brightness to the two nearby field stars which Sky Safari Pro showed as mag 11 and 12.  After admiring the last comet in my collection, I moved over slightly to take a look at M51, a nice spiral galaxy with a NGC neighbor.  I could convince myself that I saw a spiral but it really just looked like two foggy dim lights. Neither was visible in the 9x50 or my 7x50 binocs for that matter.
It was a nice night to be out but getting late and I was tired after an evening of square dancing in town.  Judy wasn't able to dance with her bum knee but I managed to find partners for most of the dances.  Fun time with Doug Mallory calling.  I'm glad to see he's doing a bit of workshop with the club.  Last night it was teacup chain and they did pretty good all in all.

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!