Yesterday I got a glimpse of comet Lulin. It is only visible for a week or so as it travels past earth. Although it's not at it's brightest, it was the first night with a break in the clouds in the right area of the sky. It appeared as a faint smudge near Leo. I needed binoculars, and even with those, I had to let my eyes adjust before I could get a decent observation.
This evening I took another look. It had moved about a field width of the binoculars. It was clearer this evening. I thought I may have glimpsed the tail, but I couldn't be sure. I had to look out the corner of my eye to see it well, as the sides of the eye have more black and white receptors which are more sensitive to faint objects, whereas the center of the eye has color receptors that tend to hide the fainter objects. It was interesting to see how the comet had moved such a distance. It gives one a sense of how fast this object is moving.
This was I think my fifth comet that I've seen. 3 of the comets I have seen were visible with the naked eye. Although this one required binoculars, I believe it would have been visible to the unaided eye last week.
For more info, see: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090225.html
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