We have a nice comet for the next few days that can be seen with binoculars. I located it quite easily this morning. It’s getting lost in the dawn light here in New Mexico, but people in the Pacific time zone can probably still see it.
If you are standing facing east, you will see Venus, which is the third-brightest object in the sky (after the moon and sun). Look to the planet’s left to see the bright star Capella. The comet will be below Capella on the morning of July 8.
On The Road – frosty – Coronavirus and The Road
mrmoshpotato
(Read in Bo’s voice from Storybots)
Oh, I love an early morning comet post!
debbie
For those of us not lucky enough to actually see the comet, NASA has had a couple of nice photos here and here.
R-Jud
I woke early this morning to see it but unfortunately there’s a great whacking fir tree in my way.
Cheryl Rofer
@R-Jud: I was very lucky that it is outside the trees around my house, and I could see it from a window.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I was going to try to shoot it this morning from a hillside in town, but it’s too cloudy. Guess I’ll try a dark place.
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t think I would have been able to see it, with my side of the planet facing the wrong way.
Barbara
July 8 was yesterday . . .
Cheryl Rofer
@Amir Khalid: Not in the sunshine, but you have 4:30 am coming up in 12 hours or so.
Cheryl Rofer
@Barbara: I grabbed the first image in the article I linked. The location doesn’t change a lot for the next couple of days.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer: oh, okay! I will try tomorrow, but there is probably too much light pollution around here.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cheryl Rofer: Next week it should also be visible after sunset as well.
Cheryl Rofer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Right. That’s in the article too.
ETA: Looking forward to seeing your pictures. There are a lot of good ones coming in. It’s quite a lovely tail.
low-tech cyclist
OK, there’s Venus. A bit to the left, and a hair up, a bright star, and suddenly I hear singing unaccompanied by instruments…ah, Capella!
Sab
I remember seeing Kohoutek back in the nineties, and for the first few days I just thought it was an airplane flying in from the west at dusk. Took me a few days to realize an airplane wouldn’t be coming in from that same unlikely location every evening.
p.a.
Comet: hmmm my original plan was to target earth, but no need to now!
rikyrah
Ah….a comet?
mrmoshpotato
@p.a.: “Damn you Coronavirus! You stole my plan!”
OzarkHillbilly
@Sab: Hale-Bopp for me. Came out of an Arkansas cave after dark way back in the boonie woods in deep dark sky country. Climbing up out of the holler and looking up to a star filled sky and seeing it… A memory I hope to carry to my grave.
Betty Cracker
I’ll have to check it out tomorrow if the weather cooperates. One great thing about living in a swamp: we can see layers upon layers of stars when it’s clear.
laura
I can see it with the naked eye and when viewed through the binoculars it looks a bit redish like the lit end of a cigarette only a bit jittery.
If not for this lovely reminder post, I wouldn’t have gotten up to look.
Betty Cracker
O/T, but apparently it’s official: Joy Reid will be doing the 7 PM show on MSNBC. :)
Spanky
It’s going to hug the horizon as it rather rapidly fades, and I have a lousy eastern & northern horizon, so good luck to those of you with better skies. Also, fog this AM down here along the river.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: And Shep Smith to CNBC.
cope
If you are looking for the comet with the naked eye, there is a technique that is very useful called averted vision. Because of the way the eye is put together, if you are trying to see something very dim, you are less likely to see it if you stare directly at it than if you look slightly to one side or the other of it. Binoculars are the preferred method if you have them.
My own efforts this morning were thwarted by clouds here in Covid 19 Ground Zero but I’ll keep trying to get a picture or two of it. I have been lucky enough to see several comets in my life and have been waiting since Hale Bopp for another good one. I am hopeful that, as Bill mentioned above, when it swings around the Sun and becomes an evening target, it is still intact and bright.
As the PBS astronomy guy Jack Horkheimer used to say, “Keep looking up”.
J R in WV
I recall in the dim lit deep past, when I was still a babe in arms, my dad, who worked late most nights into the wee hours, carrying me out into the back yard. Mom had my little bro, who I’m sure doesn’t recall this at all.
And there was a comet in the sky… it was big with a short tail sweeping out behind. Don’t recall the name.
We saw Halley’s comet with binocs… and Hale Bopp was pretty swell too. Don’t know about trying to reach the mother ship via group suicide just because a comet sweeps around the world, tho. I would have to go up onto a ridge top to see it. Maybe when it shows up in the early evening next door. Predawn I would wake their dogs up, no favor that!
laura
Spouse is harshing my mellow – insisting that what i believe was the comet was instead Mercury. The phone’s Skyview app is unhelpful in resolving the dispute. I saw what I saw.
MattF
laura:
APOD yesterday showed Mercury with a (sodium ion) tail. Which is pretty amazing and unexpected. Not observable to the unaided eye, though, I think.
Kristine
I hope to try tonight if the promised thunderstorms don’t block it. If they do, hope there’s still time this weekend,
ljdramone
@Barbara: I saw C/2020 F3 NEOWISE this morning (7/9) at about 4:30 EDT from Baltimore, MD (light-polluted sky + moonlight).
I could just barely see it naked-eye, but it looked really good in binoculars.
While you’re out looking at the sky, check out the planet parade! Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter are all visible in the morning sky right now.
bemused
I have a fond memory of laying on a dock on Lake Vermilion, MN with two other couples watching blitz of shooting stars in August. Better than fireworks.
Fair Economist
Stepped out this morning and – overcast. Sigh. Aldebaran and Venus would have been cool too.
Best comet ever was Hyakutake. Beautiful emerald tail across a quarter of the sky. You could almost see it move, too. Hale-Bopp was brighter, and hung around for a really long time, but Hyakutake was just so beautiful.
low-tech cyclist
@ljdramone:
Where’s Mars? Venus and Jupiter (on nearly opposite sides of the sky) are impossible to miss in the early dawn, and I assume that’s Saturn above and to the left of Jupiter. But I haven’t seen Mars in a while.
BC in Illinois
I think I saw Halley’s Comet. I had been looking forward to 1986 for decades, figuring that I would be able to see a part of history. When it came, it was a dud. As Wikipedia — from which all knowledge flows — notes, “Halley’s 1986 apparition was the least favourable on record.”
In desperation, I drove west from St Louis, stopped on the side of the road as far from any lights as I could get, and got out the binoculars. I saw a faint smudge where the comet was supposed to be.
I think I saw Halley’s comet.
I have great hopes for 2061 — for the comet. (My chances of seeing 2061 are very slim.)
ljdramone
@low-tech cyclist:
Yup, that’s Saturn near Jupiter. Mars is the bright orange “star” to the east of the Moon (to the left if you’re facing south.) It will be pretty close to the Moon before dawn on Saturday.
low-tech cyclist
@ljdramone: I’ll try to be up and out in the early a.m. the next couple of days, then. After that, the moon will have moved on, and won’t be much help in locating Mars!
Inspectrix
Sunrise here in Boston is 5:17 AM tomorrow. I really like comets and I really like to sleep … forecast says patchy fog then rain so I’ll sleep in another day.