A fast moving comet designated C/2006 VZ13 (LINEAR) is the best comet available for observation from the northern hemisphere at the moment. (I had to add extra spaces in the title to deal with the inability to post consecutive capital letters!)
I first observed this comet after the July ASH meeting on Monday night using the 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain at the ASH Naylor Observatory. Despite very hazy skies, the comet and its centrally condensed coma were visible.
On Thursday night, my long-time observing partner Tony Donnangelo and I drove to an ASH dark site in the Tuscarora State Forest. There were far more clouds than the forecast of mostly clear skies called for but there were times when the sky was completely clear and the transparency was quite good. The Milky Way was mottled and full of detail, with the area south of the Teapot spout chock full of dark nebulae when viewed with binoculars. The VLM was in the lower to mid-sixth magnitude range.
One of the numerous celestial objects we observed that night was Comet LINEAR VZ13. We used my 8x42 Celestron Noble binocular, my mounted 15x70 Burgess binocular, my 101mm f/5.4 Tele Vue Genesis sdf refractor, Tony's 10x50 Celestron Ultima binocular, and Tony's 14.5" f/4.3 Starmaster Sky Tracker Dob.
The comet was in the vicinity of 34 Draconis at the time we began looking at it and was easily visible. Its magnitude was probably in the upper-seventh magnitude range. The coma had a noticeable central condensation and was rather large. Neither of us could see the tail that is visible in recent images. Tony saw the comet as being blue-green through his scope, while I perceived a very pale blue hue at times. C/2006 VZ13 (LINEAR) is moving rather fast across the northern sky. Its motion was readily apparent in an hour's time.
For more on this comet and others currently visible, browse
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Other shallow-sky observing that night included watching a shadow transit by Io and observing four asteroids (two of which were very faint indeed) that neither of us had previously seen. Needless to say, we also observed a great many deep-sky objects of every variety.
Dave Mitsky