It was good to see Lovejoy. in The odd entries from life …….

Last week we had areal clear night sky, and in the day flowed a series of links on the internet, this link was about astronomy and it ended on a page on ‘EarthSky’ showing where Comet Lovejoy would be each evening through January, starting from the belt on Orion to Taurus then to Pleiades, Dad always called it ‘The Butcher’s Clever’ I suppose a local name used the Derbyshire.

So from the Butcher’s Clever I looked a little right and I found a small misty grey patch with might have short tails, comets have two tails, a dust tail and a ionised gas tail. The tails all way’s travel away from the Sun, pushed away by the Sola Wind, the dust tail curves while the gas ion is straight; this is the first comet I’ve seen in twenty year.

The photographs show Lovejoy having a green nucleus, but it dose not have enough light for our eyes, we see object like Lovejoy with the rods that see monochrome, our cones are not sensitive enough to see this low level of the colour! One of the beautiful colour images I’ve seen need a forty minute exposure though a motorized telescope.

It was good to see Lovejoy even if it was rather dull.

Last updated January 25, 2015