I saw a pale blue hue in Comet NEAT Q4's coma at magnifications of 52x and 83x on Wednesday (2004/5/20 UT) night through the 12.5" Cave Astrola at the Astronomical Society of Harrisburg's Naylor Observatory. I also observed the comet at low power through a 4.3" TAL Newtonian and at high power through the ASH 17" classical Cassegrain. At 259x the coma was rather large and asymmetric with a "jagged" periphery. The stellar pseudonucleus was quite bright.
Last night at the Mason-Dixon Star Party (see http://masondixonstarparty.org/ ) under mediocre conditions I viewed Q4 through a 10x50 binocular, a 10" Meade LX200 SCT, a 155mm Astro-Physics Starfire apochromat, a 152mm Takahashi apochromat and twin 24mm Takahashi LE eyepieces, Kent Blackwell's 25" ATM Dob and 31mm Nagler type 5, Roy Diffrient's 18" ATM Dob and 35mm Panoptic, and Ted Forte's 18" Obsession Dob. Color was most apparent in Roy's scope. The comet's dust tail was visible with difficulty through the 25". The BW-Optik Binocular Viewer equipped Tak was the best in revealing the ion tail.
Dave Mitsky
Last night at the Mason-Dixon Star Party (see http://masondixonstarparty.org/ ) under mediocre conditions I viewed Q4 through a 10x50 binocular, a 10" Meade LX200 SCT, a 155mm Astro-Physics Starfire apochromat, a 152mm Takahashi apochromat and twin 24mm Takahashi LE eyepieces, Kent Blackwell's 25" ATM Dob and 31mm Nagler type 5, Roy Diffrient's 18" ATM Dob and 35mm Panoptic, and Ted Forte's 18" Obsession Dob. Color was most apparent in Roy's scope. The comet's dust tail was visible with difficulty through the 25". The BW-Optik Binocular Viewer equipped Tak was the best in revealing the ion tail.
Dave Mitsky
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
