Greg is there an issue with the current comets lists for ST3 and ST4 for October as nothing seems to load.

Owen

I noticed that Comet 88P/Howell is passing near Antares & the vicinity of Rho Ophiuchi for the next day or two. It was really close ~ 3 days ago  .

It looks like a good target for imaging with a camera & star tracker. This is a beautiful region of the sky.

Phil S.

Received a CalSky alert for hyperbolic comet C/2020 P4-C (SOHO). Supposed to be mag -1 or -2!? Anyone know about this? I've yet to dig into SSD and MPC...

I think there's a problem with Sharatan aka beta Arietis.

ST3 and ST4 report the separation as 65". 

No way.

The WDS reports it at LESS THAN 0.06 at the widest!

A very fast binary and I got my hopes up...

No way I'll ever see that.

Hi,

I believe there's an error with U Cygni. 

In ST3 and ST4, the double shows WDS discoverer code as BUP 183.

In the WDS, BUP 183 appears as 18344+2615 BUP 183 in Lyra with a precise coordinate of 183429.15+261515.1. It is a quad with stars between mag 10 and 13. 

ST4 shows a single star J183429.1+261515 at this location. Nearby GSC 02115-1743 appears to be the B star and J183432.6+261619 the C star.

U Cyg should be BLL 49. aka 20196+4754 BLL 49.

Must be doing something wrong, but cannot find what. Tried changing everything, set excellent viewing, released all filters, and still no objects. Not a newbie at observing, but an absolute newbie at this software. Just installed offered update today.

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Hello,
If I am correct, Skytools - Real Time Observing edition - has the ability to control a motorized mount?
If that is correct, is it compatible with mounts that are controlled via EQMOD?
I understand EQMOD is being used to PC control the Orion EQ-G equatorial motorized mounts.

Thanks,
dw

Carried by the monsoon, a huge block of clouds descended on us during the day and it was obvious that there would be no comet viewing. After having been clouded out the night before, I decided to take drastic action. We got in the car at 6 PM and drove down from our mountain toward the east. Almost three hours later, we ended up on the side of the road near a potash mine, about 20 miles east of Carlsbad New Mexico. The clouds were still pretty bad, but we did see the comet, and I got some pictures with my Canon T7i/800D.

Evening July 15, 2020. Canon T7i/800D, 50mm f/1.8 lens at f/1.8 mounted on an iOptron Sky Tracker Pro. Single 8s and 30s exposures.

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Hello everyone,

I have updated the data for this comet as of July 11 in the Current Comets list.

Please remember that the tail drawn on the charts is not meant to depict the length of the actual tail (I am still working on that--its a complicated calculation). It is designed to show the direction of the ion tail and to indicate the geometric foreshortening of that tail. If the tail is presented at right angles to the coma, the line is drawn with a length of 10 times the radius of the coma circle. If pointing directly toward or away from the comet, it is drawn with zero length. At this point the dust tail is dominating, and it will be offset from the ion tail as the comet moves, leaving behind slower moving dust.

Also, a few people have had an issue where the ST4 Visual Nightly Planner picks the evening for the best time, when it should pick the morning. To fix this problem, set the After time filter to midnight. That will force it to choose the morning.

For reflecting telescope setup, is the secondary mirror percent obstruction defined based on linear units, (e.g. diameter2/diameter1) or area units (e.g. area2/area1).  I think most often the obstruction is reported based on linear units, but not necessarily always, so I wanted to confirm what SkyTools expects.  Thanks!