/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67040902/1225877305.jpg.0.jpg)
Did my best to identify places. Yellow city lights in Turkmenistan (Turkmenabat, Dashoguz) contrast
with the more blue city lights of Uzbekistan
English
- Total
- General
- Arts
- Book
- Culture
- Economy
- Essay
- Fun/Joke
- History
- Hobbies
- Info
- Life
- Medical
- Movie
- Music
- Nature
- News
- Notice
- Opinion
- Philosophy
- Photo
- Poem
- Politics
- Science
- Sports
- Travel
Nature Comet "NEOWISE" dazzling the sky NOW !!
2020.07.10 23:11
How to catch a glimpse of the comet NEOWISE dazzling the skies right nowSeeing this comet is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE Near Barcelona. Photo by Albert Llop / NurPhoto via Getty Images
For any early birds who have ventured outside in the US this week, you may have seen a tiny — yet spectacular — sight in the pre-dawn sky. A comet with a bright, opulent tail has been gracing the skies in the wee morning hours before sunrise, and it’s been giving photographers quite the show for the last week. The comet is known as Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE — or just NEOWISE for short. Scientists just discovered the rock on March 27th. It gets its name from the NASA mission that discovered it, also called NEOWISE, for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The mission consists of a spacecraft in orbit around Earth that’s tasked with cataloging as many asteroids near Earth as possible — especially any that might be potentially hazardous to our planet. But when the team behind the NEOWISE mission spotted this object, they knew they had found something special. “In the discovery images, it immediately was obvious that something was up,” Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator for NEOWISE at the University of Arizona, tells The Verge. “Instead of [appearing] as a point-like dot, it looked distinctly fuzzy. And that’s a good sign that this is a comet as opposed to an asteroid.”
Comet NEOWISE and the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada I was up really early for this shot. It's not often that we get the opportunity to see or photograph a comet of this brightness and with a tail. I hope you like it! http://instagram.com/weatherandsky
The difference between an asteroid and a comet mainly comes down to ice. Asteroids are typically pretty rocky in nature. While they may have some ice trapped inside of them, they look more or less like big chunks of dry rock. Comets, on the other hand, are often a mixture of rock and all sorts of ices — including water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and more. These ices are pretty well mixed throughout a comet, and it’s this material that gives comets their trademark fuzzy tails. The Sun heats up the ice, turning it into gas that envelopes the comet. That’s what’s happening with NEOWISE right now. On July 3rd, NEOWISE came closer to the Sun than the orbit of Mercury, and that flyby caused much of the icy material to cook, erupting as gas and dust. NEOWISE is a pretty sizable comet, too, measuring about 3 miles (or 5 kilometers) across, which is why we can get this great view of it from Earth. “You take something that’s a really big hunk of ice and rock all mixed together, and you park it very close to the Sun, it’s gonna set off some fireworks,” says Mainzer. “Not enough to destroy it, we don’t think, but enough to really make the surface sizzle and throw off a lot of material.”
NEOWISE doesn’t pose any threat to our planet. In fact, this is really the only chance any of us are going to get to see this comet with our own eyes. The path that NEOWISE takes around the Sun takes nearly 7,000 years to complete. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event. “Once in our lifetimes and our great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids’ lifetimes,” jokes Mainzer. For much of last week, NEOWISE has been showing up just above the northeastern horizon, about an hour or so before sunrise in the Northern Hemisphere. People have been able to spot it best with binoculars, though some claim to be able to see it with the naked eye. And many astrophotographers have captured stunning images of the comet in all its gassy glory just before the Sun comes out, including the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Around July 11th, though, the comet will start to appear in the evening just after sunset. It’ll be in the northwestern sky, below the Big Dipper constellation (or Ursa Major). Mainzer expects the comet to be visible for at least another week, maybe even longer. But it all depends on how the comet behaves. “Comets are very funny, fickle creatures, and it really depends on what this comet decides to do or what it does in reaction to this close passage by the Sun,” says Mainzer. “If we’re really lucky, it’s going to stay nice and active, and it should stay very bright for us.”
Comet NEOWISE from ISS And a view of the Comet Rise in real-time.. by Seán Doran© ISS time-lapse photography from July 5th 2020, converted to real time video
But this won’t last forever. NEOWISE is cruising steadily away from the Sun, and eventually, it’ll disappear from view, never to be seen by our generation again. The bright tail will drop away as the comet gets farther away from our Solar System’s heat source. “The comet’s outer layers will start to settle down again, and it will go back into the cold dark space that it came from,” says Mainzer.
"EVEN THOUGH THIS MOMENT IN TIME IS DIFFICULT, IT CONNECTS US TO THE BIGGER UNIVERSE."
Since this is such a fleeting moment, Mainzer really encourages everyone to try to catch a glimpse of this tiny piece of our Solar System, especially given what comets represent. These space rocks have been around since the Solar System first formed 4.6 billion years ago, so they carry with them the ancient history of our cosmic neighborhood. And experiencing a little awe about the origins of our cosmic neighborhood may be a nice respite from the hardship that the world is facing right now with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Comets are a way for us to get in touch with that history and understand where we came from a little bit; says Mainzer. “And even though this moment in time is difficult, it connects us to the bigger universe"
|
Comment 4
-
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE Tips, Information, Viewing Tips! / Your Astronomy Sucks #2 YAS2 24,191• Jul 5, 2020
By science out there
#Comet #Neowise arrived in the inner solar system from behind the sun from earth's perspective and just below the plain of the solar system. As a result it wasn't viewable favorably for the northern hemisphere, and didn't brighten until it was already hugging to close to the sun to be appreciated much from the Southern Hemisphere. C/2020 F3 NEOWISE is rounding the sun very close, and was just recently viewable in SOHO's Coronagraph. Because it's been so close to the sun from earth's perspective it's basically impossible to see without special telescopes right now,[Update, As of July 5th, people are spotting the comet in the morning sky from the Northern Hemisphere]...like SOHO. A comets brightness is a function of how close it gets to the sun, how much water vapor and cyanogen and other gases escape, and then how close it is to earth. In this case, It's going to be bright because of how close it's getting to the sun, and it never really gets all that close to earth as far as comets go. So it's going to dim very quickly after leaving the suns vicinity.
However there should be at least a narrow window where NEOWISE might be visible to the naked eye. , in the evening twilight sky, in the northwest by mid July. (DAMMIT) It's going to be tricky at first. For people in the northern hemisphere, the glare of twilight is going to keep this comet difficult to spot. NEOWISE will be as bright as magnitude 1 or 2 early on, Or for comparison, that's roughly the brightness of most of the stars in Orion. While that's pretty bright, it's no match for evening or morning twilight, Still it might be worth checking out.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say around July 6th or so is when it should start to be a good time to look about an hour after sunset. And if you are a morning person, There may be a few days in July between the 6th and about the 14th where you might be able to spot it in the northeast during morning twilight. That said, it may become visible a bit earlier or later in the month depending on brightness. Unfortunately most of the stars in the vicinity of C/2020 F3 NEOWISE are going to be hard to spot as well, so the hope is, you'll just be able to find a smudge low in the sky in the northwest an hour after dark. NEOWISE is escaping the sun, so your best bet is to look just above the brightest part of the sky and see if you can find it.
Now while NEOWISE in reality will be shades of white and light green, any brighter object like a setting moon, distant lightning, or clouds visible just above the horizon or nearly lost in evening twilight is going to appear a bit rusty colored, just like Panstarrs did in 2013. So NEOWISE isn't special in that regard. If you live in the far north, and not so far north that the sun doesn't set for a couple hours in July, you may have a unique opportunity to watch NEOwise in the Northern sky from dusk until dawn.
How to easily find Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE - 5 tips • Jul 9, 2020
By Galactic Hunter
Like our channel? Support Galactic Hunter: https://www.patreon.com/Galactic_Hunter
Check out our books: https://www.galactic-hunter.com/books
Galactic Hunter takes you on mysterious adventures to other worlds. Whether we are visiting planets, galaxies, nebulae, comets, or star clusters, the goal of Galactic Hunter is to teach you astronomy through one of the most rewarding hobbies: Astrophotography. Join my wife and I in our galactic adventures, and question everything you know about what lays outside of our little world.
Do not forget to vote for the next target in the comments, and visit the website where you can see a gallery of our older captures.
Website: http://www.galactic-hunter.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/galactichunter/
Instagram: @galactic.hunter
Thanks to Nasa/ESA/Hubble for their 3D animations.
Below you can find our affiliate links from our partners at Oceanside Photo & Telescope.
The Basics:
CMOS Camera: ASI 1600MM Pro - http://bit.ly/2pbF7c0
DSLR Camera: Canon 7D Mark II - https://amzn.to/2RDeDc
Telescope: Orion 8” f/3.9 Newtonian Astrograph Reflector - http://bit.ly/2NgKcYm
Mount: Orion Atlas Q-G Computerized GoTo Mount - http://bit.ly/2Jr3ZD9
Guiding: ZWO ASI 290MM MINI - http://bit.ly/2MRTm
Coma: Baader MPCC Mark III Coma Corrector - http://bit.ly/2WlEV5
How To Photograph Comet NEOWISE • Jul 8, 2020
By Alyn Wallace
COMET NEOWISE: How to capture and process a snapshot with your DSLR 3,884 views•Jul 10, 2020
By Nebula Photos
This is a very quick video I put together that shows how to capture and process Comet NEOWISE (Official name: C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)). The reason I made this video so quickly is the comet is a time-sensitive event. The sooner you can go out and see/photograph it, the better! Comets are fickle and often break apart, so if you have a clear morning (or evening next week), make this one a priority!!
If you think you may have trouble finding the comet, check out this video by my friends over at @Galactic Hunter : https://youtu.be/Gry0B-GleZk
-- Table of Contents:
00:00 Intro + Gear 02:54 Capture 04:47 Processing (Photoshop)
PHOTOGRAPHING The NEOWISE COMET: It's Too Early For Landscape and Too Late For AstroPhotography• Jul 9, 2020 - By Brent Hall
-
I have seen a lot of comets in the past. It always gave me a special nostalgic feeling
because they were here before me and will be here again after me.
Some of then return soon enough for us to see again but most of them never return within our life span.
The comet NEOWISE has a once every 7,000-year cycle.
It passed the earth as humanity started to rise and get their mother planet under their control.
Without knowing what they were doing, they started to destroy their mother planet.
By the time the NEOWISE returns to earth again, will it see our earth as the same "blue planet"
full of living things? Or, will it see the earth as a "red planet" with no life forms like Mars?
Just a thought... Not that it matters very much to me or us.
-
HALLEY’S COMET returns every 75 years.The last time it appeared was 1986.
The last video (made by converting time-lapse photography into a video) is fantastic.
We have the privilege of looking at what they saw in the International Space Station.
Here, at 2:00 minute: The sun rises over the left horizon (the surface of the earth),
at 3:15 minute: The comet starts to appear at the horizon at the left one-third
at 5:00 minute: The night sky is slowly brightening as the sun rises higher
at 6:00 minute: The comet fades away into the bright sky.
Anyone of us should be able to see it at least till July 15-16, 2020 when it fades away as it leaves the vicinity of the sun
From July 15-16: in the late evening sky (just after sunset) at the northwestern sky
Till July 11: in the early morning sky just before the sunrise at the northeastern sky.