jay@npois.UUCP (Anton Winteroak) (11/08/85)
I saw Halley's Comet a little after midnight EST on the morning of November 7th. It was a dark cloudless moonless sky, I was using a pair of 11x80 binoculars. It appeared as a very dim fuzzy spot above and to the left of the Face of the Bull (Taurus). I watched it for about an hour, and observed that it had moved slightly, so it was not a distant cluster. When people talk about apparent magnitudes for diffuse objects, they speak as though all the light were coming from the same point, just as a star, or planet would be described. So when Halley's Comet is supposed to be magnitude 8.3, you've got to expect it to be dim. The entire galaxy M31 in Andromeda has an apparent magnitude around 4. Most people have trouble seeing it, even on a night when they can see stars at 5.5. Halley's Comet appears less compact than M31, so don't expect a lot. On November 16th, it will be a little south of the Pleades, at magnitude 7.2. If you have access to a big pair of binoculars 7x50 or bigger, you stand a chance to see it. If you use anything stronger than about 30 power, you can pretty much give up now. Also, the wider the Lens/mirror, the better. Sometime in the second week of December, when Halley's Comet is lower in the sky, in the southern parts of Pisces, and Cetus (the whale), the Comet will get to magnitude 6.2. If you really like looking at comets this dim, you are in luck. There are about a half dozen comets like this every year, in fact 4 at this very moment that are brighter than magnitude 9.0.