7/31/2020 Comet 2020 F3 is now receding back into the distant reaches of the Solar System. As yet, however, it is still closer to the Earth than the Sun and closer to the Sun than the Earth is. This should make one appreciate just how rare and fleeting is the opportunity to see these events with “Eyes Only”.
In point of fact, I – your humble narrator – did not actually see this comet without the use of binoculars. And even then, it was only a fleeting glimpse – out of the corner of my watering eye (1).
“Above the planet on a wing and a prayer
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly
Out of the corner of my watering eye
A dream unthreatened by the morning light
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night”
That was on July 24th when a rare cloudless Northern sky presented itself and I was awake at the proper time. I attempted to show this to all the immediate family. For the record, it is painfully difficult to describe how to point the binoculars to another person, despite placing the student in the recently vacated footprints of the Astronomy Nerd and the use of tree branches as reference points. And even when it works, the family member is underwhelmed by the dim little streak that is seen.
In figure 2, below is seen the orbital configuration of the comet as of July 31st. The comet – known by the mundane press as ”NEOWISE” (which is the name of the space probe that discovered the comet, modified by its extended mission prefix) is actually named only “C/2020 F3”
A Norwedian collegue and reader was also able to spot the comet – despite being so far North that he had to wait until a half-hour before Midnight for the sky to be dark enough. As he pointed out, that left him with about one hour of observation time until the sky woould be brightening again.
“Wola.
Spotted it now with a Nikon 10-22×50
Still hard, but knowing where to look is key.
Thanks…”
I have searched for a definition of “Wola” and can only come up with a Polish district:
“First mentioned in the 14th century, it became the site of the elections, from 1573 to 1764, of Polish kings by the szlachta (nobility) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The Wola district later became famous for the Polish Army’s defense of Warsaw in 1794 during the Kościuszko Uprising and in 1831 during the November Uprising, when Józef Sowiński and Józef Bem defended the city against tsarist forces.”
I would continue to search, but I am busy now making Uber commerce at an accelerated rate to fund the difficulties chronicled in Uber Ally – where I owe an update to my Norwegian colleague.
This Comet update is also overdue and I hasten to publish same.
Hasta Luego,
Steve
- Out of the corner… https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pinkfloyd/learningtofly.html
- NASA / JPL Smalll Body Database Browser: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=C%2F2020%20F3;old=0;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb
- SpaceWeather.com https://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=165446
- COBS: https://cobs.si/analysis
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