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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)


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Just like busses, you wait years for a good naked eye comet and two come along in quick succession.  NEOWISE should be visible from the UK from the beginning of July at c.Mag2.5.  Currently Mag10 and a long way off but brightening rapidly.  Usual comet caveat applies.

Edited by verreli
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Interesting times!

Here is Stellarium's take on it. Looks like being a well placed July comet for the northern hemisphere.

As a morning objects.

image.thumb.png.a3d81d31df56b6487652c7b22e7a501a.png

 

As an evening objects.

image.thumb.png.8512cc7db63193f0a871dd39c9814ec9.png

 

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Looking at it;s track for the morning...  i don't think it'll be too far from where SWAN is expected to be looking at this..

image.thumb.png.01d683924cac31bb1e679102b299ded8.png

image.thumb.png.1bcf0eb5401485ee7d79a9424175bf62.png

 

That would make for  a heck of a sight, provided the dawn light doesn't drown it all out!

Thanks for the heads up!

 

Edited by Fozzie
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  • 1 month later...

Still looking good! Most of the predictions left the magnitude at perihelion  in 0 and even -1! The comet is not visible anymore because of the sun’s glare, but from 30 to 40 degrees north in latitude, the comet will appear in its maximum in early July...

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With it being so close to the summer solstice, the observing window will be short.  Also, it will only be high enough to view from the 10th July onwards (from my location) and by that time the magnitude will be falling off quickly.  I live in hope though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Looks like the comet is slowing down its fast increasing magnitude. I don't know how this one's ending. Maybe it fades, maybe it gets brighter, I don't know... I guess I'll just wait... 

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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Where are you getting the magnitude figure from?  I thought the comet was currently too close to the sun to get a meaningful reading.  Look out, from Monday, for Neowise transiting the FOV of the NASA SOHO camera.  When it pops out the other side, it should be a northern hemisphere object and getting further form the sun so becoming increasingly visible - all being well.  I'm hopeful but unsure if its brightness will overcome light levels at this time of year.  We even potentially have noctilucent clouds to contend with.  You may have better luck in Spain.

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7 hours ago, verreli said:

Where are you getting the magnitude figure from?  I thought the comet was currently too close to the sun to get a meaningful reading.  Look out, from Monday, for Neowise transiting the FOV of the NASA SOHO camera.  When it pops out the other side, it should be a northern hemisphere object and getting further form the sun so becoming increasingly visible - all being well.  I'm hopeful but unsure if its brightness will overcome light levels at this time of year.  We even potentially have noctilucent clouds to contend with.  You may have better luck in Spain.

Well, Many predictions have fortunately stopped at 0 and - 1 mag at perihelion, but a few of them are in 3rd mag. So I don't know which one to believe. Of course, I'd love the comet to be that bright, but as the comet has been lost by the sun's glare, we can't see how is it doing. You're saying that NEOWISE will enter LASCO camera this Monday? That will give everyone a window to see the comet and how it is evolving... 

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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6 hours ago, HaleBopp2007 said:

Does anyone know what will be approximately the path of the comet across the LASCO camera? 

There is an overlay of all transits of C3 for2020 in the spaceweater archive for 16June.
which shows NEOWISE crossing the field bottom right.

https://www.spaceweather.com/images2020/15jun20/c3transits.jpg

EDIT harrumpf it was there when I posted onnest but now it is giving a 404 :(

try again :

https://www.spaceweather.com/images2020/15jun20/c3transits.jpg

c3transits.jpg

 

Edited by Corncrake
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Yeah, and I think I can see it in this link a little, just a little bit with a line (signs that the comet is burning the sensor) right where it should appear. That could mean NEOWISE is actually really bright! But it could also be solar wind particles. So let's wait untill the next photo...

latest.jpg.df15db73672eacd14e6dc0e42146b30a.jpg

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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It has been showing 04:06 for about 6hr now, I hope this is a scheduled pause ? and that it hasn't gone offline !

I didnt really register the lag these past few days but I think it is normally about 2hr behind us (bst now as I type is 13:15 for the record!)

Hmmmm, 2020/06/22 04:06 leaves out the crucial bit, is that UT, or somewhere nasa-stateside type time ? !

 

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Ok, it has finally refreshed, and it's perfectly noticeable that there's something where I marked before that indeed wasn't there before! The bad thing is that there's not a line that indicates that the comet is bright. The thing of before should've been a particle of solar wind.

https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/latest.jpg

Edit: Here, every 15 minutes aprox. a new photo is published, here you can se an animation of how the comet will be moving:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/lasco-coronagraph

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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It is confirmed! That's the comet we were waiting for, and, good news! It's currently mag 2,5 aproximately, and that's 11 days before perihelion! That's a great signal, and if the comet survives, it will surely reach 0 magnitude at perihelion.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZOhpt1UwAArkVW?format=jpg&name=small

Here's an old prediction of the comet's brightness, and it's quite close of how the comet is now...

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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3 hours ago, HaleBopp2007 said:

Ok, it has finally refreshed,

Edit: Here, every 15 minutes aprox.

Thanks ! I was seriously doubting my sanity, or the integrity of my cache, for a while there.

Have we decided on the timezone yet ? I suppose being a joint ESA-NASA then UT ???

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Just by way of chat while we wait for it to   disintegrate  I mean to reappear past the Sun,
here is what I was playing with last night and this morning in Stellarium,,
trying to identify stars among the C3 artifacts, it took quite some time allowing for the projection distortions between the two views.

Tejat and Propus in Gemini were quite easy but chi Orion took some ferreting out !

I put a red blob next to chi1 Orion for NEO on the 26June according to my Stellarium but I had trouble identifying stuff near where it was due to appear at bottom of C3, but placed a tentative red blob where I thought best.
Not till it hove into view was I able to pick out some HIPs and add them to my jpg.

So, then there remained the problem of why it appeared to be traversing upwards towards the Sun,,, not where the LASCO plot said, not a line in the lower right quadrant , , , it is above my pay grade to suggest that ESA/NASA might have it plotted wrong ,,,

,,, I got it figured in the end, !!! anyone want to sus  out what I got wrong, or should I give a spoiler ?

C3c.jpg

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1 hour ago, Corncrake said:

Have we decided on the timezone yet ? I suppose being a joint ESA-NASA then UT ???

Well, I live in UTC + 2 (Spain in summer) and it's around half past eight PM, so i think it's Just taking delay. I guess it is just UTC and it's arriving with some delay, idk...

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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