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The coma glows green from diatomic carbon (C2) emission, while the blue ion and white dust tails nearly overlap on October 19th. Image details: ASA Astrograph 12-inch, f/3.6 and ZWO ASI 6200MM Pro camera Gerald Rhemann Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has been wonderful. I’ve rarely seen so much interest in a comet, with first-time skywatchers getting such […]
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. James Wray is a Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The human mind may find it difficult to conceptualize: a cosmic cloud so colossal it surrounds the Sun and eight planets as […]
Have you seen comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS yet? If you’ve not been able to glimpse the bright, icy space rock that’s traveled from the edge of the solar system, it’s not too late. But you need to see it soon. The coma and long tail of comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, also called C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), is currently shining at […]
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) was a beautiful naked-eye and binocular sight at dusk on October 13th from near McGregor, Minnesota, about 90 minutes after sundown. The tail extended 7° in binoculars and 5° with the naked eye — even in bright moonlight! A faint segment of the antitail glows pink below and right of the […]
Named after the Chinese observatory and South African programme that detected it in 2023, the ‘comet of the century’ may have formed at a distance of up to 400,000 times that between Earth and the Sun. Its coma, or head, measures about 130,000 miles (209,000km) in diameter, with a tail extending 18m miles (29m km). […]
This spectacular close-up of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was made on Sept. 30th from Namibia with an ASA 12″ f/3.6 Astrograph. The comet exhibits a prominent dust tail, a blue gas tail, and what appears to be the beginnings of an anti-tail (at top).Gerald Rhemann, Michael Jäger & Denis Möller I’m mostly a nighttime observer, but Comet […]
The comet Neowise and the Milky Way galaxy Adventure_Photo/Getty Images One of my favourite memories of July 2020 is standing outside on a clear summer evening looking at a beautiful comet, known as C/2020 F3, or Neowise, through a shaky pair of binoculars. It was a strange period, to say the least, but stargazing made […]