Comet Bradfield 2004/F4 from Cactus Flats on April 27,2004    Well, I did see this Bradfield that morning.  Finshed my setup & configuration about 2:30am at Cactus Flats.
(Bradfield broke the horizon at 3:31am).  Looking due east, I found M31 & Mirach  & aimed the Pentax MX
SLR w/a 100mm lens & took a 15 min exposure using  Kodak 400 slide film(remember that technology?).  I could
not see the comet, but managed to capture it on the first frame.  With a little shifting, to center M31, is the
second shot of 12 minutes.  About 4:30am, just noticeable, was a lightening of the horizon. Twilight begins!

                                           Two 15 minute wide-field piggybacks, taken between 3:51-:23am

This Bradfields' tail was over 11* long on these images.
And yes, that is M31in the center & the nebula NGC 281, in Cassiopeia, on the upper left edge.
(Brian Webb from the Space Archive has added the right image on his web site Space Archive   which lists the
Vandenberg Rocket launch times.)
So I shifted to small field imaging.           See below!
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                   The 3 narrow-field exposures through the 80,..................  7,5,5 minutes long.
  The Stellarvue showed a slender linear tail 5*-6*, I noticed no knots of dust/gas and
the coma was almost a pinpoint of the most beautiful Azure blue, almost pastel.
And in the C-14 with a 14mm eyepiece (279x) the coma appeared oblong, not round.                  See the jet lights.
 
The exposure below has some of the resultant contrail.

After this 3rd. shot, the horizon grew obviously brighter.
So I observed Bradfield through the scopes until the comet
was completely obscured by the sunlight.       ........later

Took a couple of shots of the Crescent Moon just after it broke the horizon.
         Very strange shape
  In retrospect, this Bradfield was most difficult to view naked eye that morning, with a combination of
slight haze on the horizon & it's proximity to the Sun, with averted vision, I visually captured it only
once, at 4:50. But, in both the 80mm & C-14 it was very striking!!  On to bigger & better comets......
                         Ya'll bave a good day now, ya hear?                8/30/04