WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]
top | item 23814317

For those at northerly latitudes, Comet NEOWISE up in the evening now, too

69 points| iamben | 5 years ago |earthsky.org | reply

38 comments

order
[+] js2|5 years ago|reply
I was a fourteen year-old astronomy geek for Halley's Comet in 1986. What a complete dud it turned out to be.

This comet is amazing. Get out and see it while you can!

Here’s a picture of it this morning in Raleigh, NC (not my picture):

https://i.imgur.com/qKXjHnU.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/r/raleigh/comments/hpsv6f/comet_c2020...

[+] blinding-streak|5 years ago|reply
Good intentions here but I think this is a little misleading. That photo almost certainly is a long exposure shot that enhances the visibility of the comet. That same poster also posted this image, which is what it looks like to the naked eye (i.e. it barely registers):

https://i.imgur.com/2Il4yJN.jpg

I too remember Halley's comet viewing -- my dad was super excited to see it. It was underwhelming.

Comet Hale–Bopp though, in 1995, was awesome.

[+] jjav|5 years ago|reply
I remember enjoying watching Halley's Comet as a young astronomy geek kid, seeing it with just my eyes (didn't own a camera or telescope).

I can't see neowise with my eyes at all. I've taken really nice photos of it, but that's with a 500mm lens on an equatorial mount and long exposures.

So IIRC Halley was a much better show.

[+] neilwilson|5 years ago|reply
Saw it over the rooftops from my bedroom window at the weekend. Wonderful.

Topped a great week. All the main planets were strung across the early morning sky like Christmas lights.

[+] FraKtus|5 years ago|reply
In Belgium, because of the light pollution, it's impossible to see it with the naked eye.

I could, however, catch a short time-lapse of it with my camera:

https://youtu.be/tq_CEIFzh70

Something I don't get is that the comet will come closer to earth in the next days; however, the astronomy sites say it will lose intensity. How can that be possible?

[+] kwoff|5 years ago|reply
The comet is getting farther away from the sun.
[+] dnautics|5 years ago|reply
Article claims it's binocs only, but I have seen it with the naked eye two mornings in a row (09 and 10 July).
[+] contravariant|5 years ago|reply
I could see it with the naked eye in a severely light polluted area but this was after confirming its location with binoculars, I'm not confident I would have found it otherwise.
[+] tambeb|5 years ago|reply
Already commented with a photo below, but wanted to say I also saw it just fine with naked eye this past morning.
[+] dfee|5 years ago|reply
I followed earthsky for sometime, and then stopped. Now I’ve been following Universe Today. The author is intelligent, but something is lacking - and I’m not sure what.

Can others provide a list of review of RSS worthy space blogs?

[+] Faaak|5 years ago|reply
For those curious about the first image [0] and it's caption ("Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project captured Comet NEOWISE on July 7, 2020, along with the International Space Station (dashed line)")

The dashed line is not the ISS but a plane. The ISS doesn't blink ;-)

[0]: https://earthsky.org/upl/2020/07/Gianluca-Masi-comet-NEOWISE...

[+] sdflhasjd|5 years ago|reply
The dashed line may be an artefact of how such a long exposure is captured - where multiple shorter exposures are taken and stacked on top of each other.
[+] thewebcount|5 years ago|reply
For some reason the charts showing when and where to see it are missing from the page for me. This is with no ad blockers installed, oddly enough. . I'm at 33° N., so I'll check out the morning sky for now, but would like to get more detail about when to see it.
[+] _Microft|5 years ago|reply
Try wolframalpha.com, enter e.g. "Comet NEOWISE Berlin, 4a.m." (no quotes, replace Berlin with your location and the time with the time you want to watch) and scroll down until you see an image of the sky with the position of the comet on it.

Good luck and enjoy!

[+] tambeb|5 years ago|reply
I found it using Star Walk 2 on Android. Got my first good look this morning in northern NJ (USA). Snapped a photo with my Pixel 4. Not as good as others you'll see online but not too bad either after a little bit of Photoshop.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cgizZeykr536eJ7w5

[+] BooneJS|5 years ago|reply
My daughter and I found a hill outside of the city. We could barely make out a smudge in the sky with bare eyes, but binocs and dSLR managed to capture it. Fun!
[+] usr1106|5 years ago|reply
Northerly latitudes is relative. Here at over 61 deg N it does hardly get dark these days. So sky watching is still on hold for a couple of months.
[+] jcun4128|5 years ago|reply
Hypothetically... if you wanted to launch a rocket from the ground and catch this thing... not gonna happen?
[+] nwallin|5 years ago|reply
It has a retrograde orbit, and its orbit is highly inclined as well. You would have to fight against the Earth's orbit to catch up to it, and would have negligible opportunities for gravitational assists.

Every probe to the outer solar system has leveraged multiple gravitational assists. These would be off the table. Basically your only options is building a super monster rocket and force your way to it based entirely on pure thrust. The rendezvous maneuver would be a monster as well.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but you're probably looking at assembling something in orbit if you really want to go visit the thing.

[+] dnautics|5 years ago|reply
no, almost certainly not enough delta-v.
[+] tilt_error|5 years ago|reply
Northerly latitudes? The sun doesn’t set so how am I supposed to see this?
[+] aaron695|5 years ago|reply
I don't get why every Starlink launch, every comet, every ISS or GPS flare I have to download another app / spend ages trying to track down how to see it.

Isn't there like a Monkey script I can grab to add to an app that people can just post?

I do guess it creates some sense of adventure having to seek it out.