Veni, vidi, vici

Darn it, I was determined. It seemed like everybody had seen the comet Neowise but me. And so I decided to give it another shot. From what I had been seeing and reading, it could be visible from the back porch. This time I got out the big binoculars – the good ones my dad gave me 40 years ago. I turned off the outside lights and stepped carefully out onto the deck. It was 10:35, about 15 minutes after I gave up the other night.

Where to focus the binoculars? After a minute or two of fiddling around, I set the focus on one of the stars in the Big Dipper. And then started scanning around.

It took a few more minutes, but I thought I saw something. Yes! There it was, next to the neighbor's tree. It looked like one of the stars, but a dirty star, with a tail above it. It wasn't big, but there was no mistaking it.

Without binoculars, I couldn't really make it out from that vantage point, even knowing where to look.

But hey hey, mission accomplished! Thanks, Dad.