Driving home this evening, I noticed that for the first time in weeks,
the western sky was clear - WOOHOOO time to see the comet!
Bundled the missus & kids, camera & telescope into the car and headed to
a park on the western edge of town, where there is a reasonably clear
view to the western horizon. The telescope was a christmas pressie that
so far hasn't been used because every night has had cloud cover since
chrissie.
Arrived just at sunset and started scanning the western sky. After a
while Venus showed itself, but no sign of the comet. about 7:40 and the
natives were getting restless, so decided to give up. Turned to grab the
camera off it's tripod, and there was the comet in all it's glory -
quite a bit further south than I expected. Snapped off a few shots on
the S2IS - at 50 ISO it needed about 15sec exposure, which is long
enough to show blur from it's rotation around the earth. A couple of my
shots are here:
http://www.users.myall.net/grahamf72/g2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId
=695&g2_navId=xa95f00e8
or alternatively:
http://tinyurl.com/3bdns2
Through the telescope the comet itself was very clearly visible.