The long hours of daylight during June and July usually result in very few observing opportunities. But when I found out Comet C/2020 F3 Neowise had survived perihelion and was a naked eye object in the late evening sky I had to see it. At 22:00 UT on 16th July I scanned the still twilit northwest horizon and thought I could make out an elongated misty patch in Ursa Major. With 8x40 binoculars the comet was revealed. The nuclear region was very bright - around magnitude 2 and disc-like but no stellar nucleus was seen. The outer coma had a greenish hue and extended into an elongated tail of several degrees length. Hints of structure could be seen in the tail. This comet reminded me very much of a smaller version of Hale - Bopp back in 1995. The image was taken on the 19th July with the Atik Infinity camera and the 4" f5 refractor 8x10s exposure.
I observed the comet again on the 27th July by which time it was positioned to the south of the Plough. It seemed slightly dimmer than before but could still be seen with the naked eye in my light polluted sky.
As observing a bright comet is on my Grand Tour this deserves to be my 39th observation.
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