too many words by laura lemay

comet

I’ve been itching to get out and see the comet, but the rainstorms have been so bad there hasn’t been a clear night in weeks. Tonight was the night; the sky is totally clear and other than the fact that its like 36 degrees out it was a beautiful night for stargazing.

The comet was surprisingly not difficult to find.{.broken_link} I couldn’t see it with the naked eye but I have a small pair of binoculars that worked just fine. Its a smudgy bit almost directly overhead, upwards and to the south of the pleiades, right next to algol. I say all this blithely but I had to look it up a couple times on a star chart (HA Rey’s The Stars, best book ever for finding stuff in the night sky.)

Comet Macholz is a new comet — well, new to us; it was only discovered in August of last year. The optimal time to see it was a week or so ago, but its still there. Grab a pair of binoculars and go look.