No luck in Chicago - Comet Hartley still M.I.A....



Chicago Astronomers Bill ,Steve and I ventured out to the Adler area spot for some over the lake comet hunting...but came up short. Sky expert Bill tried to punch through the Chicago muck with His Vixen and my C11 with no luck. I tried as well, also using the 15x70 Binos - spotting the Andromeda galaxy easily, but nothing on any" fuzzy stars".

Although this session did not meet the goal, we will still try to spot it in the evenings to come.

So, we played around with imaging and viewing other objects.



Here is M31 and doing a quick & dirty exposure, it's a bit out of focus, but at least I could get something of the galaxy.

Jupiter was making a good showing this evening, with the GRS in perfect display.....





This next one is interesting...



I bumped the scope while in mid exposure and gave me this rather cool Binary Jupiter.

Reminds me of the scene where in the movie "Contact"...Dr. Eleanor Arrowway splits for a moment while in Transit to the Vega system.

We also had some nice visitors stop by and peek through the scopes, as there was a Teacher conference at the Adler this evening. I made some good contacts and hope to establish some joint Chicago Astronomer activities.

Comet Hartley will be located and imaged soon...!

Paulie,

I'm not having much high hopes for this comet, but I'll keep up the challenge and vigil. Reminds of the Dud comet named Kohoutek of the 1970's... heralded as the "Comet of the Decade!"

Also,

did you use a yellow filter for your solar projections? Much better than a dull white orb on a sheet of paper. Use glossy paper to project your images onto. Dollar store stuff works great.