Comet 2023 E1 Atlas

[andrew63]

C/2023 E1 ATLAS is brightening rapidly this month and well placed high up in the Draco region. Not the best time for dark skies, but hopefully visible in small telescope. ☄️

http://astro.vanbuitenen.nl/comet/2023E1

 

[Littleguy80]

Managed to catch this tonight despite some SkySafari issues that almost led me to give up. Tracked it down to the correct location with my 10” dob. Best view was with the Docter and VIP Barlow giving approx 163x mag. Not an easy spot without astro darkness but definitely there. Finished up with M57, Albireo and M27 for some bright favourites. Thanks for the heads up on this, Andrew  

[Littleguy80]

Just updated my records and that’s comet number 25 for me. A quarter century no less!

[Simon Pepper]

On 14/06/2023 at 01:34, Littleguy80 said:

Just updated my records and that’s comet number 25 for me. A quarter century no less!

This is a great idea do you literally just have a saved word doc somewhere? I think I am going to do this for comets and supernovas as I can still remember the four comets and I think two SN! 

[Littleguy80]

1 hour ago, Simon Pepper said:

This is a great idea do you literally just have a saved word doc somewhere? I think I am going to do this for comets and supernovas as I can still remember the four comets and I think two SN! 

I created myself a little spreadsheet to keep track of the things I wanted to. While observing I use SkySafari to quickly log what I’ve seen. In the spreadsheet I can just add anything to the individual lists and this then automatically updates the summary. I’ve learnt not to make record keeping too onerous, otherwise my fun hobby starts to feel like a chore. For example, I was recording the sun spots I’ve seen when I first started solar observing but have stopped that now as it didn’t seem a particularly interesting number to record in the end. 

[mcrowle]

Great thread - absolutely love comets!

I located and imaged 2023 E1 ATLAS last Thursday, during a brief spell of relative darkness before Moonrise, after noticing the comet's position in a distinctive starfield in Draco. It was indeed quite easy to find, though appeared quite diffuse.

Below was the result of 18x2-min exposures with a 12" f/4 Newtonian.

By the way I too have been recording a list of comets seen (since my first in 1983), in a database started in the 90's.

Regards, Mike.

Edited June 15, 2023 by mcrowle

[Paul M]

That's great image. Nice colour too.

Capturing faint comets is one of my favorite passtimes. 

No chance oop north. Still broad daylight here and its 10pm. 

[John]

Interesting thread 🙂

When it's darker I might have a look at this one myself with my ED120.

Stellarium is still showing it as being around 15th magnitude but Heavens Above has it at 10.3. 

 

 

[Simon Pepper]

On 15/06/2023 at 21:10, Littleguy80 said:

I created myself a little spreadsheet to keep track of the things I wanted to. While observing I use SkySafari to quickly log what I’ve seen. In the spreadsheet I can just add anything to the individual lists and this then automatically updates the summary. I’ve learnt not to make record keeping too onerous, otherwise my fun hobby starts to feel like a chore. For example, I was recording the sun spots I’ve seen when I first started solar observing but have stopped that now as it didn’t seem a particularly interesting number to record in the end. 

This is amazing. So is the spreadsheet located in the sky safari app or is this something you put together? Thanks 

[Littleguy80]

3 hours ago, Simon Pepper said:

This is amazing. So is the spreadsheet located in the sky safari app or is this something you put together? Thanks 

All my own work. It’s done in Apple numbers but I expect I could export it for Excel if you wanted a copy

[Stu]

On 15/06/2023 at 22:17, John said:

Interesting thread 🙂

When it's darker I might have a look at this one myself with my ED120.

Stellarium is still showing it as being around 15th magnitude but Heavens Above has it at 10.3. 

The link Andrew posted has it at 10.42 currently. SkySafari is way out too at 15.0.

[John]

I've just been looking at this comet with my 102mm refractor. Quite hard to tease out against the summer sky. I found that I needed 80x magnification to show it more clearly. Still around magnitude 10 I would think.