Originally Posted by Carlos_dfc:
“
Henry'll probably already realise this - but objects low down in Virgo - like the Sombrero - only give us in UK a limited time-frame per year to catch them.”
“
Henry'll probably already realise this - but objects low down in Virgo - like the Sombrero - only give us in UK a limited time-frame per year to catch them.”
I know exactly what you are saying but I am not one of your dedicated observational astronomers. If you cannot see it with the naked eye I usually do not bother.
In 1997 it fell to me to do a piece on Radio 5 Live about comet Hale Bopp.
Anyway two reporters came with me to observe the comet. Now it so happened that at the appointed time the cloud cover was 100%. One of the reporters said to me "You are going to have to pretend to see the comet". Now I was very unhappy about this. By good fortune it started to clear out and I was able to make my report without any skullduggery involved. In fact the clouds made it better since the great excitement of the comet appearing was recorded.
Not sure what would have happened if the clouds had stayed.
That was over 12 years ago. In fact I last sighted Hale Bopp on May 4th 1997.



