panSTARRS

I've chased Ceres as it slid past El Nath in Taurus and beyond. Any asteroid that dim takes peripheral vision and a lot of star map searches. Most of all it takes patience. For a break from the tough work of following an asteroid, I took time out to search for the comet. I knew by now it would be very visible and maybe have a nice tail. Of course comets are sun grazers, so to see it I had to search from just before sunset to just after. That means the sky is still quite bright above the western horizon. No matter, a veteran like me doesn't give up easily.
To date I have managed two views of Comet PanSTARRS: one from the area of Moorpark College; the other from my own front yard. I found the comet on 12th of the month after a half hour of sweeping the horizon.. In our sharp clear sky it hung directly above a distant tall tree that became a pointer. The tiime, 7:46 was just after sunset and before the deepening twilight.It hung like a bright tight shaft of light, the tail fanning out and upward. I gazed until it dropped into the murky atmosphere, fading in a blur.  I just had to try to find it again, this time from my own yard.
It's terrible when you bring out cloud bait. Several nights of clouds and mists have blocked the comet out. After much searching I caught a good view of it between the trees on the west of our property. It wasn't near as nice and bright, rather blurred and hazy, probably because the sky wasn't cooperating. But see it I did. So did our neighbor who considered it fabulous since it was her first ever view of a comet. We'll definitely try again as PanSTARRS rises farther north and dims as it moves away from us.