Comet!

[pameladean]

It's been either moony or cloudy or, sometimes, both at once, since I first had Comet Holmes called to my attention. This evening I went out with the birdwatching binoculars. I'd planned to be sure of the comet's location by finding Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, but although it's not exactly cloudy, the stars aren't very bright. I had a bit of trouble even with Cassiopeia, and couldn't find the Pleiades at all. But there was a bright star more or less in the right place to be Mirfak, the really bright star in Perseus, so I just found it in the binoculars and looked a little to its left, and the comet popped right out. It was, with those binoculars and under those conditions, just a round yellowish blur, but I was still very happy to see it.

P.

P.S. Why does the LJ spell-checker know "Mirfak" but not "Pleiades"?