Meade Autostar & Comet Machholz

[COLOR="Purple"][/COLOR]My husband and son bought me my first REAL telescope for Christmas, a Meade ETX90. Although a bit dissapointed with only one eyepiece included, I'm having a lot of fun with it. My problem is I want to enter Comet Machholz into the autostar, but I'm a real amateur and can't figure out all the info its asking me to enter in order for the autostar to find the comet for me. Which brings me to the embarressing question: Where the heck is this comet? I get all the sky charts etc., go out with the binocs, the scope, dark places, but I can't find it! HELP

Paul Maxson posted this link and it is quite good:

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2004Q2_1.html

Also, from The Sky for Feb 10 9:30 PM (see Photo).

Ed

Attached Image:

Kathy,
I have the LX200 and what I have been doing is going to www.calsky.com to locate the comet. You will need to register with them, which will tell them your location and then you enter the times you want to view the comet and it will give you the RA/DEC coordinates for those specific times. When you set up your scope use your handbox control, hold the "mode" key down for two seconds, scroll up or down to the RA/DEC coordinates, then enter the RA/DEC coordinates for the comet and then "Go To" which should take you to the comet. Hope this helps...
Clear Skies,
Michael

Just to add.... I observe from the heart of the city with a 10" dob. All I can see is what looks more like an unresolvable globular cluster..I can't see any "tail".

Maybe you could be looking right at it and not realizing it because you can't see the tail like in the photo's.

Mark Visser