Hi All,
Comet Cardinal C/2008 T2 was named after Rob Cardinal, a Canadian Astronomer who discovered it back in October of 2008 while he was looking for asteroids.
Here is my shot of Comet Cardinal C/2008 T2 while as it was passing by M36 open cluster in Auriga.
It is faint and tiny, but has a pretty blue nucleus and inner coma and a faint green outer coma.
While I was doing some data reduction for the MPC on my normal Minor planet submissions, I decided to measured the comet…
I measure its nucleus at 14.7 magnitude in Astrometrica…but with its combined faint outer coma its probably closer to 13th Magnitude visually right now.
This is a tough one to see for us city dwellers. Comet Cardinal is estimated to get as bright as 8th magnitude come May and June 2009 when it approaches the Sun…but it will also be very low in the Southwest by then, becoming a Southern Hemisphere object.
I used my homemade 16″ scope & ST9 CCD captured from my observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio on 04-17-09. This close-up shot is a 5 minute exposure in LRGB.
Comet Cardinal on 04-17-09
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com