It's not often that I get to see two rare astronomical phenomena in the same week, but that's what has happened. The other night was an
extraordinary display of the aurora borealis in my part of Central California (and most of the rest of the lower 48 states and Alaska). And tonight was my first look at a comet since 2020. Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is now visible in the west shortly after sunset. It will be rising higher in the sky each night during the remainder of October, but it will be dimmer each night.
I couldn't see it with the naked eye, but the night-shot setting on my smart phone did a decent job of capturing the tail. A short internet search will reveal many spectacular photographs by people with better technology than me. A helpful providing the details of the discovery and location of the comet
can be found here.
I've had a spotty relationship with comets over the years. Comet Neowise showed up in 2020, but my
photos were not great. The two greatest comets I ever saw appeared in 1996 and 1997, about five years before I got any kind of digital photography equipment. I have great memories of comets Hiyakutake (1996) and Hale-Bopp (1997). They were truly spectacular, and Hale-Bopp was especially bright in the sky when I was crossing the deep dark skies of the Basin and Range province in the middle of the night on a long trip.
If you get a chance over the next few days, take a look west after sunset and see if you can't catch a glimpse of one of the fair treats of the cosmos.
No comments:
Post a Comment