Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)

[wormix]

Naked eye visible for me from around 1am. The pointer stars of Capella and Menkalinan really helped highlight it. 

My first comet - truly spectacular. 

[estwing]

Phone pic of the back of the camera....its fantastic. 

[Tenor Viol]

Well, sad person here - still not seen it. Unfortunately, it didn't get better here. People to the south of me seem to have been OK and people to the west of me on the coast in say Liverpool etc seem to have been able to se it (friend posted pics from Parbold Hill). I stayed up until 01.45am but persistent bank of cloud on north and east, thinner overhead.

I am going to have to think about where to view it from tonight. There was a break in the cloud around midnight and I had already worked out it would not be visible from the house so went to top of the road which is slightly higher and has a clearer view to north. I think that although I could see Auriga clearly, the small hill was just enough to block it - stripes of cloud didn't help.

I think I will have to drive somewhere to see it. Grinshill might be an option - I need to go to Shrewsbury later so I will stop by and have a look as I'm not sure if it ha s a clear view to the north. Alternatives might be Clee Hill near Ludlow (but that's 50 miles) or Moel Fameau in north Wales - it's about 30 miles from here. 

Edited July 11, 2020 by Tenor Viol

[chiltonstar]

It was nicely visible here at 23:30 last night with the 15x70s. After ten minutes or so dark adaptation, it was visible without the bins, although nothing like Hale-Bopp of course! A stack of 6 frames with a 90mm macro lens:-

Chris

[russ]

5 hours ago, Pompey Monkey said:

Lovely picture and the best comet I've ever seen!

I can see the same noctilucent clouds from Portchester (Hants) Too.

Oh no, i packed away too early. Was the comet easily visible from Portchester? I was looking around 1am in Eastleigh but couldn't spot it.

[russ]

1 minute ago, chiltonstar said:

It was nicely visible here at 23:30 last night with the 15x70s. After ten minutes or so dark adaptation, it was visible without the bins, although nothing like Hale-Bopp of course! A stack of 6 frames with a 90mm macro lens:-

Chris

That's stunning...well done!

[Roy Challen]

I also went out this morning, with Mrs.C. We went to the same place I went on Tuesday, and saw it straight away with eyes only, and through the bins it was spectacular. Mrs.C has never seen a comet before, so this was extra special for her. After looking at the comet for half an hour, we had a quick tour of the planets - Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter with three of it's main moons also visible. As a bonus, on our walk home, we also saw the NLCs that others have mentioned. What a great early morning out!

When we returned, I quickly went up to the north bedroom and looked out the window, the comet was still easily visible in the lightening sky, well above the houses.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Roy Challen

[Cosmic Geoff]

I saw it at 3am on the morning of the 11th.  I had to stand in the road near my house as there is no clear horizon to the NE from my property. I knew to look in line with Capella and Beta Aurigae and could just see a faint smudge there.  I put the 10x50 binoculars on it a saw a bright nucleus with long tail. An amazing sight, never seen anything like it.  I have seen comets before, but at best they were telescopic objects I could just see.  No chance of trying to image it as I don't want to stand with my kit in the middle of a road.

On going back indoors I found I could get a line of sight on it from a bedroom window, but the view through Victorian glass + secondary glazing was very bad.

From other reports it seems I could, in theory, see it earlier in the night.

[Mark at Beaufort]

Tried to view Comet from home - too many trees in the way. I even tried from a bedroom window. In the end I got into the car and drove out of the City to a dark location with a good northern horizon. I used my Helios Apollo 15x70 binos - all I can say is WOW. Its the best Comet that I have observed because I missed Hale Bopp in 1997.

From this dark site the Comet was an easy naked eye object. So glad that I have seen a naked eye Comet for the first time.

I hope to drive to the same location tonight and use my Heritage 130P.

[Tenor Viol]

1 hour ago, Graham Darke said:

Still not seen it. 😬 3 hours I was out again this morning but the clouds wouldn’t shift. Will try again tonight. 

Same for me 😦

[CraigT82]

Magnificent night! Drove 30 mins and hiked a mile in the dark to the top of Blackdown Hill in the mendips but the panoramic views all round were really something else. 

Just with the naked eye there was beautiful NLC, a once in a generation comet, the milky way, the Pleiades Jupiter, Saturn, Mars the moon and Venus. Tons more with the 8x50 monocular. 

Carlsberg don't do stargazing nights, but if they did.....

 

[JamesF]

4 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

 

My last view of the comet as I was walking past the window on my way to the bedroom at about 3am was very similar to this (and the photo that John posted earlier), with the NLCs slightly to the west.  An absolutely stunning view.

James

[mikeDnight]

Perhaps not as impressive as all those amazing images, but here's my sketch from 10.57Ut last night. In my 4" apo and with  a 35mm Eudiascopic eyepiece the comet all but crossed the entire field of view. At high power using a 3.4mm HR eyepiece the nuclear region revealed nice structure.

[Roy Challen]

Fantastic sketches, Mike, and just as impressive as all the images!

[lukebl]

Rather than getting up early, I decided to stay up late so that I could see it in a dark sky, and it was spectacular. This was at about 1:00 BST (i.e., 'real' midnight). Disappointed that there weren't any Noctilucent couds, though.

Canon 6d, ISO 400, Canon 75-300mm lens @230mm. 15 secs

Edited July 11, 2020 by lukebl

[Davey-T]

2 minutes ago, lukebl said:

This was at about 1:00 BST

Lovely image Luke, curiously I took one a couple of hours later and the tail was more vertical, I wonder if its rotating ? or maybe my camera wasn't level 😁

Dave

[lukebl]

3 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Lovely image Luke, curiously I took one a couple of hours later and the tail was more vertical, I wonder if its rotating ? or maybe my camera wasn't level 😁

Dave

To be fair, I'm pretty certain my camera wasn't particularly level either! I was scrabbling around in a wheat field, in the dark trying to avoid being seen by the farmer.

[tooth_dr]

5 hours ago, mercandrea said:

@tooth_dr Great shot, can really see the length of the tail, spectacular! What time was that at? I wasn't as lucky, caught a couple of fleeting glimpses in binos about 3:20 and again about an hour ago through the smallest of gaps in the clouds. Nothing of note on camera though. 

Hi Mark! That was at 2am, but the forecast was well wrong. I was looking from midnight and it was blanket cloud up until 1:50am

5 hours ago, HaleBopp2007 said:

WOW! That's a stunning picture of the comet's tail! How did you get such a nice photo? 

Thanks! My secret is to take several photos in the hope that one is salvageable lol

5 hours ago, Philip R said:

Wow! - that is one lovely image @tooth_dr

Thanks Philip 👍🏻

[tooth_dr]

33 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Magnificent night! Drove 30 mins and hiked a mile in the dark to the top of Blackdown Hill in the mendips but the panoramic views all round were really something else. 

Just with the naked eye there was beautiful NLC, a once in a generation comet, the milky way, the Pleiades Jupiter, Saturn, Mars the moon and Venus. Tons more with the 8x50 monocular. 

Carlsberg don't do stargazing nights, but if they did.....

 

Fantastic and as you say so much astro stuff going on. A great time for anyone wanting to get into astronomy.

The comet is a lot higher for you being near the bottom of the mainland. 

[Pixies]

We need a Comet image challenge!

[Bathurst]

Took this from Worthing, West Sussex on a Lumix TZ70 Compact. Comet was easily naked eye visible and the Noctilucent Clouds were an added (new for me) bonus.

[Waddensky]

Last night I went out for C/2020 F3. It's circumpolar from here now, so I decided to go look for the comet around midnight near the coast, where I have an open, unobstructed view to the north. The air above the sea was incredibly transparent, I could easily make out several distant lighthouses with clear, white lights instead of the usual muted shades of yellow. The sky above the North Sea was filled with dark, floating cumulus clouds that contrasted beautifully against the deep, saturated, azure twilight sky.

Capella and Menkalinan appeared from time to time from behind the clouds, they were the pointers for tonight as they almost directly lined up with the comet. I waited a few minutes for the clouds to slowly drift in and out. Had a nice view of Saturn and Jupiter in the south east while Spica was setting in the west and Pegasus, the great flying horse, was rising in the east, heralding the forthcoming autumn.

Suddenly, the clouds opened up and cleared a large patch of blue sky right in the north. There it was. Just six degrees above the horizon, a scintillating, bright light surrounded by a hazy, dimly glowing patch. Tranquil and majestic, as comets go. With averted vision the tail was easily seen. I was surprised how bright it was, it's been a few years since I saw a naked-eye comet but this one was by far the brightest I've seen since Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp in the ninetees.

The 10x50s revealed C/2020 F3 as the archetypal comet: a bright, well-defined coma with a long, curved tail that easily spanned the entire field of view. One thing you don't notice in photographs is the striking contrast between the bright, glinting, almost stellar core and the fuzzy coma. A wonderful, charming visitor of the inner solar system. If you haven't seen it yet, go out and try to find it. It's worth it.

New clouds rolled in, hiding the comet from view. Quickly visited M31, enjoyed the silence of nature and the magnificent view of the sea for a few minutes and went home.

[tooth_dr]

Lovely image @Bathurst very atmospheric, and taken with a regular compact camera too!

So many fantastic images on this thread.

[dd999]

Tired today, but so worth it

First attempts at dslr AP. I think the bug has hit me

 

[jonathancd]

Amazing night with great views of the comet.  Even got my wife out of bed at 3am!! Here is my picture from NE London.