I would never have made a good milkman. This 4am waking is killing me. Ordinarily I’d stay up to see 4am, but getting up to see it is just crazy talk.

Defeated by clouds, rain & Christmas the past few days, this was my first opportunity to have a look since Christmas Eve. Comet Lovejoy had noticeibly dimmed, perhaps half to one magnitude. It had also shifted where previous observation had put it half a degree or so to the west of the Pointers, it was now slight to the right of them.

A stiff breeze shifted the intermittant clouds past us, so there was some good viewing as well as spotting 2 satellites, the ISS, and a few meteorites. Barry had his trusty 12 inch dob set up and we got crisp viewing of Omega Centauri and Saturn & its moons.

I’d been vaguely following a few comets this year including the one that got eaten by the sun  but only read in last night’s paper that Comet Lovejoy which narrowly missed the sun itself, has put out a lovely tail and is clearly visible in the wee hours.

Here’s the NASA video from the ISS.

So, I thought iI’d give it a go. An hour or so before dawn is what Spaceweather said, I grabbed my trusty D300s, tripod & remote & headed South to see what I could see.