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Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)


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 I think think that although the illumination will be decreasing after perihelion today, the brightness as seen from Earth is still predicted to increase a little (!) in the vanbuitenen

vanb.jpg.e5df248911982b232335668af287e987.jpg

link  due to the better phase angle - geometry

However that may not be a lot and aerith (http://aerith.net) predicts it at peak now

http://aerith.net/comet/catalog/2020F3/mag.gif

that is all a bit academic, by way of conversation, and something to do while we all in the UK wait for the clouds to go and the rain to stop :(

 

Edited by Corncrake
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As I said before, you can count on me if you want me to say the aspect of the comet. I’ll start observing it on July 6th. And for last, I’ll see it the evening of the 16th of July. Of course, these are not the only days. The Magnitude is still hard to predict. We have to wait until the comet goes into darker skies.

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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4 hours ago, matt_baker said:

Will we be able to see it from the UK?

Ah well,,, if it developed a longish tail pdq and if (insert many ifs of choice :) )

then a little before SUNrise tomorrow in southern UK this is how NEOrise might look (in about 6hrs time)

insert some flying pigs as well for good measure :)

Actually, this is Stellarium with horizon, atmosphere extinction sunlighting all on, quite twilightish,,,, so if it wasnt for the clouds,,,

 

NEOrise.jpg

Edited by Corncrake
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I imagine that the twin conspirators of latitude and twilight will put paid to any early glimpses of this comet at its brightest and and by the time it climbs out of the perma-dawn glow it'll fade rapidly.

My current expectation is that it'll be a tricky binicular subject at best by the time I get to see it. 

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6 minutes ago, Paul M said:

 the perma-dawn glow

I was quite surprised at how dark-ish Stellarium was representing the dawn sky at 3am when I did that pic

and edited my post to say so, just as you were posting !

Grrrr drated Atlantic conveyor of bad tidings grrrr

Edited by Corncrake
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12 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

Ah well,,, if it developed a longish tail pdq and if (insert many ifs of choice :) )

then a little before SUNrise tomorrow in southern UK this is how NEOrise might look (in about 6hrs time)

insert some flying pigs as well for good measure :)

Actually, this is Stellarium with horizon, atmosphere sunlighting all on, quite twilightish,,,, so if it wasnt for the clouds,,,

 

NEOrise.jpg

How are you getting the tail? I've downloaded the comet from the configuration but it says the comet is magnitude 8.5 at any time

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4 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

How are you getting the tail?

Good question ! It took some trickery and bear with me, memory isnt what it once was, something like :-

find your C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Stellarium\data and in there find ssystem_minor.ini

it is a big (text) file and location varies with flavour of OS ( mine is Win7 at the mo. )

Find C/2020 F3 and play with apparent magnitude, dust tail, and other params that may seem inviting.

Edit it with a text editor that plays to unix convention (ie not notepad! ) and save after renaming the original to something safe !!!

That is just a quicky, I will post more later if I have forgot something,,, good luck ,,,

 

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The agranoing thing is that you have to exit and restart St each change to see the effect.

and get the right ssystem.ini, there were many spread around my computal in different places.

This is what I did to my NEOWISE segment  :-

[c2020f3(neowise)]
dust_brightnessfactor = 1.5
name = C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
slope_parameter = 3.2
orbit_AscendingNode = 61.012
dust_widthfactor = 1.5
radius = 5
orbit_PericenterDistance = 0.294743
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.999206
orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2459034.182789352
orbit_good = 1000
absolute_magnitude = 2.5
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 37.2715
dust_lengthfactor = 0.4
orbit_Inclination = 128.9372
orbit_visualization_period = 2612359.3825275013
coord_func = comet_orbit
albedo = 0.1
type = comet

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Happy 4th of July to all the americans! And a gift from the comet NEOWISE:

An even better view of it! :)

 

EcD_YGLXgAEzQlo.jpeg

EDIT: That is an extremely processed image. It's more like this:

 

EcEDep0X0AA7kU4.jpeg

Still better than before... 

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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One thing of note from the photos I've seen so far is that they typically use long lenses of around 500mm so Neo is small but there are few other stars visible so it is very bright.  In a weeks time when we have more contrast, the fainter parts of the tail should be visible.

I'm also interested in the look of the head.  Could Neo have another surprise in store?

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7 hours ago, verreli said:

 long lenses of around 500mm so Neo is small but there are few other stars visible so

Could Neo have another surprise in store?

so,,, that explains my surprise that none of the pictures showed Venus along side, and no one has mentioned it ! poor Venus, never before has she been so ignored :)

No, no surprises for me, my first comet was Arend-Roland,,, so I've seen it all 👿

 

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New image, and the most gorgeous show of the comet's tail untill the moment! 

 

EcGifLRXkAAZCl4.jpeg

EDIT: I got wrong! The photo is from McNaught's comet. Sorry 4 the confusion 😅

Edited by HaleBopp2007
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Very nice picture.  It may be another decade or so when we get another good comet so make the most of the next couple of weeks.  I was out in the rain today checking out locations with a low north east horizon.  There's surprisingly few within a reasonable distance.  Things get better in a week though as it gets a bit higher.

Edited by verreli
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No! No! I still refuse to get excited! But it does look promising now :)

I have a low NW horizon looking over Penrith from our Luxury Cumbrian Villa that we now have access to after lock down. No chance this weekend. Miserable and grey.

Maybe on my night shifts on Thursday and Friday next week I'll get a chance from one of the high vantage points at work. 

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45 minutes ago, HaleBopp2007 said:

New image, and the most gorgeous show of the comet's tail untill the moment! 

 

EcGifLRXkAAZCl4.jpeg

Do you have the the link to his (Sebastian Voltmer) original posting please, I can not see it on his Flicker ? (nor on www.weltraum.com which is redirecting to another server )

 

Edited by Corncrake
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The way the head was developing, it suggested it could break into two distinct heads - that being an unusual increase in brightness, twin plumes and a darkness mid core.  Let's just call it wild internet speculation based on limited data.  I think the NASA pic you just posted blows that theory out.  The nucleus looks solid and healthy and gives me confidence it should survive a couple of weeks until I get darker sky's.  I may even get a break from the 100% overcast cloud, rain and wind I'm currently enjoying.

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14 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

Do you have the the link to his (Sebastian Voltmer) original posting please, I can not see it on his Flicker ? (nor on www.weltraum.com which is redirecting to another server )

 

I got it in Twitter. Search C/2020 F3 and you'll be able to find it... 

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14 minutes ago, verreli said:

The way the head was developing, it suggested it could break into two distinct heads - that being an unusual increase in brightness, twin plumes and a darkness mid core.  Let's just call it wild internet speculation based on limited data.  I think the NASA pic you just posted blows that theory out.  The nucleus looks solid and healthy and gives me confidence it should survive a couple of weeks until I get darker sky's.  I may even get a break from the 100% overcast cloud, rain and wind I'm currently enjoying.

Well, the same thing happened to the great comet of 1881:

 

descarga.jpeg

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