2019 Mar 01, Kos Coronaios

Visible in our evening skies is C/2018 Y1 (Iwamoto). A near-parabolic comet with a retrograde orbit discovered on December 20, 2018 by Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki Iwamoto. It passed closest to Earth on February 13, 2019. It is expected to reach a magnitude of between 6.5 and 7.5, visible in binoculars or a small telescope. Imaged on February 22nd 2019 from Pearly Beach, Western Cape by Kos Coronaios.

Poor conditions, lots of haze and low level cloud moving in and out of the target area. No moisture at ground level but certainly up at altitude. Comet was not visible in the finder scope, camera viewfinder, live view, or in binoculars (12×50). Could not see it at the eyepiece probably due to the camera not 100% aligned with the OTA and did not want to move the scope during the short imaging session that I had. And then the clouds really rolled in! With the Moon heading towards last quarter I’m hoping for some good clear skies down here with some mag. observations to add.