Home > Sketches > Comets > C/2004 Q2 Maccholz

OBSERVATION DETAILS :

OBJECT : C/2004 Q2 Maccholz       TYPE : Comet       CONSTELLATION : Eridanus

POSITION : 4h 37'    -20^o 38'      MAGNITUDE : 6.1      DATE : 3 December 2004

TIME : ~ 10:45 pm. IST       TELESCOPE : 8" f / 5.6       EYEPIECE : 32 mm.      MAGNIFICATION : 35 x     

LOCATION : Bangalore City (+12^o 58' , 77^o 36' E)       SKY-CONDITION : Badly light-polluted as the location was in a city, but the sky was clear from clouds. Seeing was good.

OBJECT DESCRIPTION : Bright center, stellar nucleus, perfectly round coma with an outer fainter envelope. I first tried to find it and saw it from city. Not easily visible with even a telescope from a city due to light pollution. Looked exactly as shown in the diagram. I had to star-hop to find this bright object, and had some difficulty finding it. But from a dark site it was visible with naked-eyes and appeared as a fuzzy round ball. This comet passed very close to the open cluster M-45 (Pleiades) on the 7-8th. Jan. 2005 which was a wonderful photographic moment.