THREE COMETS NEAR ARCTURUS

 Location:  St. Martin's, NB, Canada

Date Time:  August 8, 2020 2130-2345hrs

Weather:  Party cloudy, hazy, no wind, no dew, many mosquitoes for first hour, 19c at 2130hrs, 15c at 2345hrs.

Attendance:  Myself.

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80 ed/apo with Canon Rebel T3 attached at prime focus.  20x80 binoculars.  Images processed with Photoshop.

Objective:  To view and image as many comets as possible in the NW sky, as soon as it gets dark enough.  Also, to view and image a close pairing of a waning Gibbous Moon and Mars, and to look for any Perseid meteors which might fly over.  The Perseids peak on August 11 and the Earth has not entered it's debris field, so there is a chance to see the bright yellow, smoke trail making shooting stars.

Report:

• Set up, about 100 yards from the beach in St. Martin's, so the humidity from the water seemed high, but I didn't have a way to tell what the humidity level was exactly.  For most of the observing session most of the southern sky was covered by passing clouds.  It took a long time for the sky to darken enough to start looking for the faint comets, which were halfway up in the NW sky.

 

•  It took until about 1015pm for the sky to darken enough to look for the comets with binoculars.  Comet Neowise popped out easily in the field of view.  It has a bright central region, with a hint of a huge fanlike tail from the 10 o'clock position to the 12' o'clock position.  Greenish with varying brightness across its visible disk.  The other comets did not show up in the binoculars.
• Aligned scope on Arcturus and Alkaid.  Imaged M3, which was about halfway between Alkaid and the first comet I was going to image, Comet Neowise.  Comet Panstarrs T2 was very faint, and was located about halfway between Comet U6 and Neowise.  Panstarrs showed up better in the viewscreen of the camera than what could be drawn out by image processing.  Comet U6 was very near Muphrid, which was just out of the image field of view.  A very faint, grayish, irregular shaped blob without a bright central region.  All comet images were taken with the same camera settings to show a comparison.  They were 30 second and ISO of 6400, with the exception of the M3 image which was 30 seconds and ISO of 1600.
  

 

 

 

 

•  The comets were near Arcturus and Mophrid in Bootes.  According to Richard Hinkley Allen, in his Star Names Their Lore and Meaning, Arcturus, aka Alpha Bootes is 0.3 magnitude, and is golden yellow.  Hinkley dedicates many pages to Bootes and Arcturus.  Being one of the brightest stars in the sky, it has an amazingly rich history amongst many different cultures.  For western cultures, the kite-like asterism is thought of as "The Herdsman".  Arcturus is Latin, for 'guardian of the bear'.
  

•  Also, according to Richard Hinkley, Muphrid is 2.8 magnitude and pale yellow..  Derives from the Arabic word Al Mufrid al Ramih.  It means Solitary Star of the Lancer.
• After viewing and imaging the three comets, I made an attempt to image Comet 88P Howell, which was in Virgo.  But, by this time it was too low in the NW sky to image.
• Turned to Saturn and Jupiter which were just to the east of a nice bright milkyway, in the south.  Took portrait and landscape style images.
  

 

•  As I was finishing up, around 1130pm, noticed a very low, reddish, waning gibbous moon rising in the East,over the Bay of Fundy.  It was very close to a very bright Mars.

 

•  Many satellites were seen and some even ruined images.  One very bright Perseid was seen around 1030pm.  Long, bright, yellow streak that left a very long, long lasting smoke trail.  It flew just over Bootes, from the NE, straight down to the SW.  As I was searching for comets with binos, seen another smoke trail, but didn't see the Perseid.