Hi Andrew/Peter,

Thanks for your reports. The widefield image shows the long ion tail
nicely and Andrew's visual report gives a good description of what this
object looks like in binoculars.

I also took the opportunity to image the comet last night (Jan 27). It
clouded over in Chelmsford around 10pm but I had a session of around an
hour in moderately clear skies although there was always drifting high
cloud and the moon was a problem. I'm using a 72mm, f/4.8 refractor and
an ASI294MC camera for widefield. I got a total mag of 5.4 from the
green channel of my image and a coma diameter of around 23 arcmin. A
forked ion tail is faintly visible to the west extending out of the
image field of view.

The image is on the BAA website:

https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20230128_073836_4403751768d3944b

It is interesting to compare our observations with Gideon van Buitenen's
excellent simulation here:

http://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/resources/C2022E3_simulation.gif

The tails are just about to swing around very rapidly from our point of
view.

Nick.

On 28/01/2023 00:22, Andrew Robertson wrote:
> Hi Peter and all,
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> I managed what is likely to be my final view this evening. I knew the moon would be in the way but the forecasts were suggesting total cloud cover by about midnight with no further clear spells forecast until a very bright moon is in the way even in the early hours so it was tonight or nothing else. I got going about 10:30 pm when the moon was just below 15 degrees altitude and hidden behind trees so it wasn’t affecting my views much. I reckon I could just detect it N/E averted vision. I also knew where to look but I reckon it was just detectable (observing from South Norfolk.) I put the 7x50 bins straight on it and it was prominent in those. Next was the big 28x110 Helios binoculars with a tad over a 2 degree FOV. It was impressive in these. It was a large elongated fuzz, obvious to about a ¼ of a degree in length and about half as wide, say 7’ with a bright tiny core. I could detect a very tenuous elongation of the tail up to about half a degree or just under. It was about 45 degs altitude so in a good clear sky.
>
>
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> I didn’t have long on it before bits of thin cloud started coming over it and by about 11pm I was finished – total cloud cover. Brief but very enjoyable.
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> Andrew