{"id":2768,"date":"2020-07-26T09:22:18","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T08:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.popastro.com\/main_spa1\/comet\/?p=2768"},"modified":"2020-07-26T14:34:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T13:34:03","slug":"neowise-now-fading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.popastro.com\/comet\/2020\/07\/26\/neowise-now-fading\/","title":{"rendered":"NEOWISE now fading…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you haven’t managed to see the lovely Comet NEOWISE F3 with your naked eye yet you might have missed your chance.<\/p>\n

At its brightest a couple of weeks ago, as F3 was barrelling towards us after surviving its whip around the Sun it was clearly visible to the naked eye as a star with a long, misty, feathery trail curving away from it, a trail that long exposure photographs showed stretched for many degrees across the sky.<\/p>\n

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Long-time comet observers – for so long starved of a comet that could be seen without a telescope or even a pair of binoculars – looking at it from a dark sky site, away from light pollution, were surprised and fascinated by how easy it was to see and how big it appeared to the unaided eye, and many non-astronomers were delighted by the opportunity to see such a rare event just from their gardens or after a short walk to somewhere a little darker. F3 actually became so bright, and so big in the sky, that it could be photographed with the cameras on mobile phones.<\/p>\n

From here in Kendal, Cumbria, my best views came on July 20th and 21st, when I was able to see the comet from a dark sky site and take photos of it using a tracking mount. I was able to capture both its curved, pale yellow-white dust tail and its long, straight blue gas tail…<\/p>\n

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Of course, it couldn’t last…<\/p>\n

F3 has now passed Earth and is heading off back into the cold depths of the solar system again so it has faded a lot and is only going to get fainter and fainter now.<\/p>\n

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Above is a photo I took two nights ago – you can see how it has changed in appearance – and reports I’ve read this morning put it at around magnitude 4.5, so if you are blessed to live under a dark sky – or can get to one without having to travel too far – you can still see NEOWISE glowing faintly beneath the stars of the Plough with just your eyes, but most people will now need a pair of binoculars to see it. But even so, a magnitude 4.5 comet is rare and nothing to be sniffed at, especially after these recent frustrating years of peering at 8th and 9th magnitude comets through telescope eyepieces.<\/p>\n

So, if you haven’t seen F3 yet do try this week – it won’t be back for almost 7,000 years. Many people are saying NEOWISE has “gone” now it’s no longer so obvious to the naked eye but that’s just not true. It is still a lovely sight in binoculars and telescopes, and again, a 4th or even 5th magnitude comet is rare so it is very definitely still worth looking for. Here’s where to look for it…<\/p>\n

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All images: Stuart Atkinson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t managed to see the lovely Comet NEOWISE F3 with your naked eye yet you might have missed your chance. At its brightest a couple of weeks ago, as F3 was barrelling towards us after surviving its whipRead more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comet-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t