According to reports, C/2006 M4 (SWAN) has undergone an outburst and is now in the fourth magnitude range of brightness.  Some observers have reported seeing the comet without optical aid from light polluted locales.

Comet SWAN M4 is currently in northern Corona Borealis so be sure to have a look at it this evening if the skies are clear.

http://skyhound.com/sh/comets/2006_M4.gif

Dave Mitsky

I can report this.

Friday night, Oct 20th, I observed comet M4 SWAN with 7 X 50 binocluars and my 10 inch f/4 Schmidt Newtonian. I checked it again last night, Oct 24, and it was lots brighter.

Binoculars showed it clearly bigger and brighter than near-by M13 cluster in Hercules. In telescope I viewed at 39X and 1.33 degree FOV. I could clearly see a small center core surronded by lots of white fuzzy (sorry I don't know the best scientific term). The core was sorta round but the surronding white area was elongated. There was a hint of a tail.

Sky was very clear. Time was about 8:15 CDT. About an hour earlier would have been good, but I was busy. I was in my backyard so there was some light pollution.

It is a good comet. I don't doubt that from dark site it would have been visable naked-eye.

It seems to have been around magnitude 4.5 last night, which is more than five times as bright as was predicted. As I report here, it appears that there was an outbust in the nucleus as the comet was warmed by the Sun. Keep watching this fascinating comet while we have dark moonless skies!

Paul

http://skymania.blogspot.com

I viewed comet SWAN back on the evening of the 23rd about 8:30 CST with my 10" dob. It was then about 5 degrees from the stars Nu1/ Nu2 Bootis. I could see it very plainly in my finder (9x50). At 133x it had a very definite white central core surrounded by a diffuse coma. I thought I could see a very subtle green color to it but I'm not sure.In the same field with my 9mm Expance eyepiece was the double star (Struve) STF 1973. An 8.00 mag. star + 9.20 mag. companion with a 30" arc/sec. seperation.

Later that night about 11:00 CST I found comet 4P Faye. It was then about 45 arc/min. from the star 64 Ceti. It was not visible in my finder. It looked kinda like one of the fainter galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.

Clouds and rain have moved into my area the last couple of days. I am waiting for another look.

 

We finally got some breaks in the clouds here, and I was able to see the comet easily in 10x40 binoculars and through an Orion ST80 (15mm Expanse eyepiece, 26.6x).

It has indeed brightened significantly since I was able to see it last on October 18th, at which time it was maybe about 8th magnitude. It is now shining brightly at probably between mag. 4 - 4.5. I am not very good at estimating magnitudes, but it is at least twice as bright as the now nearby globular cluster M13 in Hercules (mag. 5.9), and nearing in brightness both Zeta Herculis (mag. 2.8) and Eta Herculis (mag. 3.5), so that I would say ~mag.4 might not be a poor estimate.

It was very condensed toward the center and appeared to have an almost stellar pseudonucleus, surrounded by a fuzzy but still surprisingly bright coma. I thought I might have caught a glimpse of some faint elongation of the coma in a tail stretching toward the NNE.

I was viewing through intermittent but often rather dense clouds, and did not have my glasses with me, so I could not see it with the naked eye, but I had the distinct impression that, in a truly clear sky with properly corrected vision it would easily have been naked-eye visible.

Very exciting. They say it may be even clearer here tomorrow night (but then, kids say the darndest things, don't they?) and if so, I hope to get a better look at it. It will be even closer to M13 then, and the two may be visible in the same low power field of view, which would be a pretty sight indeed!

 

Clouds foiled my attempts to observe C/2006 M4 (SWAN) on Wednesday evening and almost did so again last evening at the ASH Naylor Observatory despite forecasts of clear skies on both nights.  However, I was fortunate enough to have an occasional sucker hole open up for a few minutes now and then and was able to catch glimpses of the comet through 8x42 and 15x70 binoculars, a 5" f/5 achromatic refractor, and a 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain working at 162, 202, and 259x.

The coma appeared blue or perhaps aquamarine through the 5" finder scope.  It was definitely elongated through the 17" and a hint of the ion tail could be seen.  The coma was at least twice as large as M13 and was quite a bit brighter.  A distinct pseudonucleus was visible.  The comet was positioned within a long isosceles triangle of field stars while I was viewing it.

Dave Mitsky

Clouds finally cleared here but missed my chance tonight.  It's after midnight and the swan has gone well into the horizon by now :(

Oh well, tomorrow I may get my chance.

Thanks Dave, for the finder chart.  Using your chart, I was able to find it just off of Zeta-Hercules.  I was using my XT10 with a 17mm Stratus.  I then was able to boost the mag with a Televue 3x barlow.  My description would be the same as JustADude, bright center surrounded by white fuzzy.  I don't know the scientific term either.

I had just enough time to locate it before the clouds come back.

David

Tonight was the first chance I have had to observe this comet before it went down behind the trees.  Of course the illumination from the Moon was of no help, after a while I could start to see some tail. Although very faint, it was definitely noticeable.

I went out as soon as it was dark with my binoculars and located it with ease. Then I moved my XT10 to an area where it was looking through a clearing of trees and observed it for more than 1/2 hour. I could easily see the fine point of the core within the pale turquoise or aqua color glow surrounding it.

For a  while there I though this would be one that I wouldn't be able to observe due to its possition in the sky and the fact that I have tall trees to my north and west. But there is one area where the tress are short and that is right where the Hercules constellation was.   I observed it at 48x 70.5x and 150x. Unfortunately the atmosphere would not allow me to go much higher than that. The image was degraded at 150x due to sky fog and poor seeing..



Have A Nice ___________

Hi tkerr,

I would like to know if you're looking N or NW at twilight, and how high over the horizon in order to see M4. I have Meade scopes ETX-70 and DS-114's.

Thanks,

kevcald

kevcald wrote:

I would like to know if you're looking N or NW at twilight, and how high over the horizon in order to see M4.

It is perhaps 10° - 15° above the WNW horizon as the sky becomes fully dark, currently leaving the SE corner of the 'keystone' asterism of Hercules. I saw it again last night when skies finally cleared again, first from my sister's house, but only with a little ST80 I had brought with me, using an 8 - 24mm zoom eyepiece at 16.6x to 50x, but moonlight and ambient street lighting made it impossible to see with the naked eye. I did get to show it to my brother and sister, though, which was nice. Neither was particularly impressed, but still, I always enjoy sharing comets with non-astronomers that they otherwise would never have seen, or even known was there.

It was about 1° NW of epsilon Herculis, and tonight will be about 2° ESE of the same star - the SE star in the 'keystone.'

Later, from home, I tracked it down again with the 5.5" f/3.6 SNT, and it was fairly impressively bright (despite still considerable moonlight) viewing it at magnifications ranging from 33.3x to 111x, using 15mm, 9mm and 6mm Expanse eyepieces and a 2x "Shorty-Plus" barlow (except on the 6mm eyepiece).

There was little detail visible, but it was still much brighter and larger than M13, with a strongly condensed pseudonucleus, a large, fuzzy coma sorrounding that, and perhaps a faint hint of elongation toward the NNE. I would like to look at it with the XT8, but clear nights are so rare these days, and with moonlight increasing, it seems almost like an exercise in futility whenever we do have one.

Still, it was very pretty, and an enjoyable observation.

kevcald wrote:

Hi tkerr, I would like to know if you're looking N or NW at twilight, and how high over the horizon in order to see M4. I have Meade scopes ETX-70 and DS-114's. Thanks, kevcald

To observe the comet I was looking West North West about 40 degrees above the horizon in the constellation of Hercules as soon as it got dark enough to see it.

As for M4 it is in the constellation of Scorpious and is currently below the southern horizon when it is dark.


Have A Nice __________

Hi all,

Here is a finder chart I made for this comet:


http://my.opera.com/kpdocs/albums/show.dml?id=155632

Enjoy!

On the evening of Oct 30 I took this wide field image of the Comet to show where it was in Hercules. This was with a really old film 35mm SLR with a 50mm f/1.7 lens ISO 800 film 30second exposure untracked. On the next night, when at a Halloween party I was showing the comet and it had moved about a degree towards the left (east) of the image. The Comet is the little green dot (just below centre in the image) above epsilon Herc which is the bottom left corner of the "Key Stone" of Hercules.

The way the comet shows in this image is about how well it showed naked eye from my rural ;location, when it was at its brightest. I hope the link to this image host works.

http://upload4.postimage.org/1549980/photo_hosting.html

Bill 

Nice image Bill! Thanks for sharing. I've got an old Ricoh 35mm camera, with a 55mm zoom lens. That's about the best piece of optical equipment we own right now. I'm going to try to get out with the kids tonight, and see what we can see.

I observed Comet M4 SWAN again on 11-8-2006 at 6:30 P.M. Central time. It was near 102 Hercules at about 18h 13min RA and +22 degrees declination.

It is not nearly as bright as it was 3 weeks ago. I would estimate it at mag 7 to 8 but I don't claim to be good at magnitude estimations. I obseved it in a 10 inch Newt reflector at 39 X. It looked like a fuzzy cloud. I saw neither a central core nor hint of a tail like I did on Oct 24.

It was visable but not bright it in my 7 X 50 binoculars. The sky was very clear.

I observed Comet SWAN M4 on Thursday evening, 2006/11/9, from the ASH Naylor Observatory and concur.  The comet was markedly more dim through a 15x70 binocular than the last time I viewed it.  Through a 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain, the pseudonucleus that was quite prominent two weeks or so ago was not noticeable, although the asymmetrical coma was still prominent. Dave Mitsky