Date: Friday, Feb 20, 2009
Here’s a picture of Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) I took from my back yard around 4:00 this morning using my Canon A630. For scale, the bright star to upper left is Gamma Virginis (Porrima) and the slightly dimmer star to the upper right is Eta Virginis (Zaniah). North is roughly at the top.
I also looked at it through my 65mm refractor. It has a star-like nucleus and diffuse coma, which is definitely elongated roughly east-west. Couldn’t see either of the tails though. Thought I was picking it up naked eye but not consistently.
At 13 degrees and a stiff breeze it sure wasn’t what I’d call comfortable out there!
Doug
The image was enhanced to show the comet better (at the expense of additional graininess of the background).