Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)

[inFINNity Deck]

4 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

When is NEOWISE expected to peak in brightness, or has it already done so?  Wall to wall cloud here for the last two nights. 

See attached image, according to Stellarium it reached its maximum brightness on 10 July.

Nicolàs

[HollyHound]

1 hour ago, andrew63 said:

A magnificent night here! Comet Neowise still an easy naked eye object with the tail still showing well in a darker sky. Had my first view in the ST80 at x16 and the nucleus was breathtakingly intense - very beautiful.

 

Same here, first time I’ve seen it through a telescope and so used the ST80 with Panoptic, for x16 as well... really lovely view of the bright core.

I did find that the view though binoculars, still seems the best though... it’s a lovely thing to see 😃

[HollyHound]

8 hours ago, Corncrake said:

The evening started off with a nice clear sky but I had to wait considerably longer for it to pop out of the twilight than when I last saw it (last Sun 16Jly) Rather sad really, prepare to say bybye NEOWISE was nice knowing you.

Few clouds moved away by the time the sun set here and treated to lovely clear sky, but yes it did seem to take a good while longer to become visible, compared to last Sunday. It also didn’t seem quite as brilliantly bright either... still superbly fantastic and I still love that it’s visible to the naked eye 😃

[Rob]

Managed to see (naked eye) and take a few shots of the comet last night. And relax!.

Fair bit of cloud dodging mind. Tonight is looking good, so I will setup the 80ed for a proper look + some better images

[Rob]

Noticed also that sky safari have removed Neowise from the free to the pro version only...

[verreli]

4 hours ago, HollyHound said:

Few clouds moved away by the time the sun set here and treated to lovely clear sky, but yes it did seem to take a good while longer to become visible, compared to last Sunday. It also didn’t seem quite as brilliantly bright either... still superbly fantastic and I still love that it’s visible to the naked eye 😃

Same observation for me last night.  It's still naked eye visible but very much on the wane.  Get it while you can.  This weekend may be its swan song and be a technical object thereafter.

[Corncrake]

I have seen talk in various places about NEO getting higher in the sky, and pictures from Stellarium showing it climbing towards Arcturus, which is all very exciting but ,

I dont think so !

Can someone check if I am doing something silly please ! because the way I see it over the next days, and into August, is that it sinks slowly in the west  as does Arcturus.

The default setting in Stellarium Calculator is to plot the comet on the star background (yellow dots in my pic below) but that shows the star background at the start time of the plot. However the star background will rotate as the days progress.

I have set the Calculator to plot NEO relative to my horizon (southern UK) for 23BST (22UTC) and get a very different impression, the green plots.

So, the upshot - it will appear slightly higher in the evening twilight, over the next few days, but not by much There will be a slight advantage with the earlier onset of twilight, but not a lot ?

Unless I have made a serious blunder ?? !!

 

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Corncrake

[peabrain]

went out to have another look last night since i could not sleep

[JamesF]

27 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

I have seen talk in various places about NEO getting higher in the sky, and pictures from Stellarium showing it climbing towards Arcturus, which is all very exciting but ,

I dont think so !

Can someone check if I am doing something silly please ! because the way I see it over the next days, and into August, is that it sinks slowly in the west  as does Arcturus.

Looks correct to me.  I think it's reached pretty much it's peak altitude for us now and will drift down and to the west over the next month.  It certainly has been getting higher thus far though.  Last week it was barely sliding along my northern horizon, mostly hidden by the trees in the hedge line of my orchard.  Last night it was well above them.

James

[miguel87]

I know there has been a million of these photos so sorry! My best shot from last night. Really happy to have got a proper look at it before it disappears.

 

[inFINNity Deck]

1 hour ago, Corncrake said:

I have seen talk in various places about NEO getting higher in the sky, and pictures from Stellarium showing it climbing towards Arcturus, which is all very exciting but ,

I dont think so !

Can someone check if I am doing something silly please ! because the way I see it over the next days, and into August, is that it sinks slowly in the west  as does Arcturus.

The default setting in Stellarium Calculator is to plot the comet on the star background (yellow dots in my pic below) but that shows the star background at the start time of the plot. However the star background will rotate as the days progress.

I have set the Calculator to plot NEO relative to my horizon (southern UK) for 23BST (22UTC) and get a very different impression, the green plots.

So, the upshot - it will appear slightly higher in the evening twilight, over the next few days, but not by much There will be a slight advantage with the earlier onset of twilight, but not a lot ?

Unless I have made a serious blunder ?? !!

 

 

 

My image was indeed relative to the sky of 17 July. If you select Neowise in Stellarium and forward time in steps of 24 hours, Neowise will indeed start to plummet towards the horizon by the end of July, following the green path in your graph. Of course it will get slightly earlier dark, allowing us to see it slightly earlier, but that will not make a significant difference. In the meanwhile the magnitude also drops, so most likely there will not be much gain in the earlier sunset.

Nicolàs

Edited July 17, 2020 by inFINNity Deck

[Jem7]

Since I made my first post and sighting of Comet Neowise back on the 11th  its been constant cloud and drizzle/rainy conditions here in Ireland. I really hope I get another chance, its so frustrating 

[mattjanes100]

Finally got a clear night to see it myself too, after admiring all of your wonderful work. Spectacular!

 

Took a couple of untracked 25 second exposures and this was the best.

[RobertI]

Finally got to see the comet tonight. A beautiful and mysterious object - I can see how the ancients were disturbed by these interlopers. The tail seemed to be about 3 degrees in length (half the FOV of my binocular). Through the 66mm frac it had a very condensed core and the tail had a sharper edge on one side. So pleased to have seen it.

 

@Littleguy80 your shot of the comet behind the clouds is just wonderful - my favourite shot of the comet so far.

 

 

[Littleguy80]

54 minutes ago, RobertI said:

@Littleguy80 your shot of the comet behind the clouds is just wonderful - my favourite shot of the comet so far.

Thank you! That means a lot  Glad you got to see it for yourself!

[discardedastro]

Very rough and ready one using an old 80-200mm f/4.5 Nikkor and Z6, no tracking, 60x2.5s, CosmeticCorrection and CometAligned in PixInsight, quick SCNR/histogram/curves and knocked the red down a bit to lose all the CA from the lens.

Also shot some stuff with an 85mm f/1.4 Zeiss Milvus which I'll crunch tomorrow and should do much better on the CA front.

Telescope needs to move 10 feet to the left to be able to catch it, so if the weather looks promising I'll do that tomorrow and accept I'll lose my perfect PA...

Edited July 18, 2020 by discardedastro

[inFINNity Deck]

At last we had a clear night again. Imaging done with SkyWatcher Esprit 150ED and ZWO ASI1600MM Cool Pro in LRGB (30x2s Lum, 12x5s Red, Green and Blue). Unguided imaging with Neowise's orbit programmed in the GM3000HPS mount. Stacked in DSS, stretched in APP. RGB combined, Lum added and further enhancement in PSP.

Nicolàs

 

[mcrowle]

Just back from a bonus 2.5-hour session viewing and imaging NEOWISE. I say "bonus" because CO had given the conditions red status and the Met Office forecast had been fluctuating between cloudy and clear all day. Luckily there was barely a cloud in the sky since 11 pm, though the transparency has been reasonable rather than great.

The location I'd used for the pre-dawn sessions, when NEOWISE first became visible, is no longer suitable as the comet is further north and hidden by the wooded valley sides. That location had been ideal because my back was towards the village lights. Now I have to view the comet over the lights of a main road and a floodlit level-crossing. Those lights are shrouded by trees but still light up the murk, reducing visibility of the comet slightly and giving some odd colour gradients on my images. I hope the forecast clearer conditions early next week will help out by reducing that murk.

Anyway, obstacles aside, I'm pleased to say NEOWISE is still looking spectacular! Even though it was more or less at its lowest point of the night by the time I packed up, the tail was still clearly longer than my 7x50 binoculars field of view.  There's so much to look at in the sky at the moment, with the Milky Way core, Jupiter and Saturn, but I'm afraid I cannot drag my view away from the comet at the moment!

Regards, Mike.

Edited July 18, 2020 by mcrowle

[John]

Jupiter, Saturn, the Milky Way and the rest of it will be visible tomorrow, next week, next month etc, etc. Comet Neowise will not come back for over 6,000 years. Make the most of it

[Davey-T]

Not long come into view here, not as obvious as last time I saw it but just about naked eye once found nucleus looks more star like tonight in bin's, taken a few snaps of it.

Dave

[Davey-T]

Just watched Neowise fading into the dawn and treated to nice Moon and Venus

Dave

Edited July 18, 2020 by Davey-T

[Bathurst]

On 13/07/2020 at 05:53, Scosmico said:

What time did you take the picture? 

‎11 ‎July ‎2020, ‏‎03:23:10

[steppenwolf]

Frustratingly, we can't see Comet 2020 F3 (NEOWISE) from home so we climbed up to the top of the South Downs last night and saw it in all its glory - as a bonus, we saw some fabulous glow worms too!

[PeterW]

Glow worms... almost as rare as naked eye comets... 

 

peter

[PeterCPC]

I got it last night but we had low level clouds spoiling the show a bit. Stack of 6 8 sec exposures at 1600iso Canon 750d at 48mm lens.

Peter