Comet brings sickness? Maybe, but not Lulin
Feb 26th
After the Lulin observing compaign on Feb. 24/25, my tireness of long travel, preparation of the new term operning and many other things stacked and made my bad cold intensified into the worst bad cold I have ever experienced in past ten years. I feel sleepy everywhere, unable to recall something quickly, even unaware of what I'm doing. I think I need a good rest this weekend. If the recovery is not significant, I may need to go to the doctor's.
Although I was feeling very bad last night, I still carried my binocular and tripod with the help from Sisi Chen to the top of laboratory's building for Lulin. The sky was good for a downtown-based field -- with LM around 2.0-2.5, cirrus on. I spent a little bit longer to find the comet -- about a minute I think. Cirrus occasionary went over the region and we had to pause. Under heavy light pollution, I estimated the brightness of Lulin to be about 5.0 mag. with a coma at about 20', the tail was faint in the background, I measured several times and confirmed it's about 1 deg long. Although not formally trained before, Sisi recorgnize the comet with ease, and she could detected the tail too. Very sharp eyes!
I should stay there longer for the view, but I had to go to bed, so I forced myself to go back to dormitory at around 22:50. Comet may indeed bring bad fortune like sickness, but Lulin shouldn't -- the cause of the bad cold maybe, like 85P/Boethin? Its period is 11.5 years so it fits the fact for this 10-year worst bad cold Thankfully the cloud comes up tonight so I can sleep early. The moonson season is coming, but in early March I will pay a short visit to Beijing and Tianjin, so there are still chances to see Lulin!
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