Searching for Comet Lemmon in city lights viewing in Orange County

 Greetings from Palmia Observatory

Well, there has been a lot of talk about Comet Lemmon and how it is sort of naked eyeball visible, so I had to get out of my easy chair and take the flimsy tripod and DSLR outside and take a look.

The bright star Arcturus was a good guide start to position the camera just before the star dropped below the camera.  But, sadly, maybe just my old naked eyeballs just couldn't find the -0.1 mag star.  Yea, a lot of city lights.  So, I just used the magnetic compass settings to position the camera at 283 degrees W, as shown in this GoSkyWatch screenshot.  Notice the RA and Dec for Lemmon because these values will come up later.

GoSkyWatch App Screenshot Comet Lemmon Location (Source: Palmia Observatory)

Sometimes, the iPhone magnetic compass acts up and points you in the wrong direction, but I was able to verify that the current prediction was accurate because it pointed correctly to the visible crescent Moon.

So, I positioned the camera axis so it was about 15 degrees above the horizon and aligned it with the compass heading.  This 30 second exposure doesn't show much of anything that resembles a comet.  I looked at this image quite closely and couldn't really find anything, although there are some background stars visible.

Pointed the DSLR in the direction of Comet Lemmon, 55mm, 30 sec (Source: Palmia Observatory)

This image was submitted to nova.astrometry.net and the image was plate solved to give the background stars and center location of the image at RA= 15 hours, 29 minutes, and Dec = 22 degrees, 41 minutes.  The image size based on the 55mm DSLR focal length is identified as 24 x 16 degrees.

Astrometric details for the DSLR image (Source: Palmia Observatory)

So, the DSLR image is pointing very close to where comet Lemmon should be, but nothing visible shows up.  I guess the city lights skies are just too bright.  I've been waiting for some local OCA Astronomer to post their best shot of the comet, but I'm still waiting.  Maybe somebody went out to a dark sky site and looked up and took a photo.

Well, luckily, I found this image on Facebook from Astrofalls is in Rockwood, TX and they shared a fantastic image of the Comet Lemmon.

Somebody in Texas had a good view of Comet Lemmon (Source: Astrofalls)

Thank you for sharing.

Until next time,

Resident Astronomer George

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