553 replies to this topic

[thedude_01]

The same. I have a mountain range on the eastern horizon where my house is, and by the time the comet cleared it this morning, sun washed it out . At least we are trying!

[Kitfox]

Is there a resource that tell us what its height over the horizon is for a given location? i put it into sky safari and it didnt give any such information. Thanks 

Located in the monthly sticky, this is the best I have seen, thank you as always, Carl!

 

https://www.cloudyni.../#entry13705357

Edited by Kitfox, 26 September 2024 - 04:52 PM.

[Diego]

Tried again this morning, right when I was about to throw the towel.... SUCCESS!!! Spotted with 7x35 binoculars. I later observed the comet with my 70 mm refractor at around 15-20x (zoom eyepiece). It was a lot brighter than I expected. The head was very white and the tail extended about half a degree, however the sky was getting brighter so it was fading out.

Also spotted with 9x25 binoculars but much dimmer.

Finally I was able to see it naked eye with adverted vision.

This was from Córdoba Argentina between 6:00 a 6:15 am. -31 S

[CarterB]

Similar to Diego, I had good success today from Austin (30 North). At 6:30 local (11:30 UT) this morning (45 minutes before sunrise) I found it in my 8x42 binoculars with a very noticeable tail of about half a degree. I tried hard to spot it naked eye and thought maybe once or twice, but I don't think so. Tomorrow I'm going to try and do 6:00 local and have hopes of spotting it naked eye but I'm in a Bortle 8 area and the comet will be observed over the heart of the city so probably a fool's mission. I may try and travel out further to have a better shot.

Edited by CarterB, 27 September 2024 - 08:11 AM.

[thedude_01]

Comet spotted for around 20 minutes this morning with both Celestron Sky Master Pro ED 7x50 binos and 15x70s regular Pro.

It was indeed helpful to have a nice flat Eastern horizon with nothing in the way. The comet was much brighter than I thought it would be. Could not see it with own eyes, but tail was nice looking in both pair of binos. 

Looking forward to the next two mornings!

[MichaelJB]

any chance that this has potential to be a "Great Comet" in that it would be visually impressive to the naked eye, or can it be determined already that this is not possible?

[cometguy]

I processed this image to give some indication of how it looked to the naked eye this morning (Sep 28 18:20 UT) from a relatively dark location.   Seeing the moon and comet+tail together without optical aid was very memorable. 

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Edited by cometguy, 29 September 2024 - 06:07 AM.

[B 26354]

First spotted it this morning in my GPO 8x56 binocs at ~5:30am PDT, shortly after it had risen above the mountains to my east, at an altitude of about six degrees. The sky had already begun to lighten a bit by then, so as readily visible as it was in the GPOs... it was nonetheless invisible, naked-eye. I was still able to make it out in the binocs at 6:05am... but a minute later, it was gone from sight.

 

This is with an Askar ACL200 on an Olympus OM-1, 1/4-sec at f/4 and ISO800.

 

 

Now that I know where it'll appear, I'll try for a somewhat earlier (and better-exposed) photo tomorrow, with my SV70T.

 

  

[ayadai]

A bit of a cross-post to share the observation with folks in this thread:

 

15 degrees North Latitude, 2024/09/30:05:20, the clouds miraculously parted for the first time in two months and Tsuchinshan-Atlas was clearly visible with the naked eye through the overcast. Although it was below the treeline from where I set up the larger scopes, I was able to get a somewhat reasonable image of it with a Nikon D5500 and a TPO180 lens on a camera tripod at a different location:

 

[thedude_01]

I wasn't able to see it with my own eyes this morning, but it looked amazing in both pair of binoculars. In binoculars the tail appears to be around 1 to 2 inches in length across the sky. I was also able to view it with the 9.25 evolution as well using it manually this morning, and saw a bright, detailed and confine core.

Will be trying again tomorrow morning from my own house, but may not be lucky with Mosquito Range and Mount Sherman in the East. We will see!

[kennhk]

Got this at around 5 degrees altitude this morning in Hong Kong (23N). 50mm guidescope with Uranus-C cam, on a star tracker, nice and compact setup. 30x10s

[SStoffer]

Just saw Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas yesterday morning in a church parking lot before sunrise. It seemed rather small but prominent in the deep orange of morning twilight. 

 

Was observing with 15x70 binoculars handheld. Wish I had my tripod, it would have been so much steadier. 

 

I have seen brighter comets at this point in twilight conditions. A Comet Panstarrs in 2013 was easier to see in the evening twilight. And Comet Neowise was also much brighter and larger at this point in observing. 

 

However, I hope it gets considerably brighter for I want a brilliant comet by mid-October. 

 

Still thrilled I have finally seen the comet. It took three tries before yesterday. 

 

 

Clear skies! -Stephen

[B 26354]

Another gorgeously-clear, completely-cloudless dawn! Thanks to yesterday morning's sighting, I knew exactly where to look, and spotted the comet easily in my 8x56s the moment it rose above the mountains... but it still was never naked-eye visible for me.

 

Different setup today... with the Olympus OM-1 on my Stellarvue SV70T and its dedicated 0.8 reducer/flattener, giving me a 336mm focal length at f/4.8. This shot is 1-sec at ISO800.

 

 

After today, C-2023 A3 will start heading back down toward the horizon, so I likely won't try any more photography of it until it's at about the same altitude in the western sky... starting around October 13th. Hopefully it'll be a bit brighter then... but ya never know, eh?

 

[randy_1701]

Sunday morning September 29th, I awakened early, and from the front yard of our home near Moncks Corner, South Carolina (about 33 deg N, near Charleston, SC) at about 06:10 EDT I started looking for the comet, as it was projected in Sky Safari to rise around 05:55 EDT, but alas, it was still too low in the sky behind my eastern tree line to be able to spot it while the sky was still dark.

I positioned myself in a better spot in my yard and at 06:38 EDT I managed to see it with binoculars as it was popping out of a low spot in the tree line!

After I spotted it with binoculars, I managed to get my smart phone up to the eyepiece and successfully captured the attached photo.

Equipment:
Celestron Classic 10x50 binoculars
Universal Astronomics Unistar Light mount with Binocular L bracket
Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max main camera 24mm f/1.78 at 2x or 48mm efl (phone by itself)

 

I am really looking forward to it's upcoming "evening sky" appearance.

 

Regards and Clear Skies,

Randy in South Carolina

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[Starhunter249]

The weather is getting better for me. I am going to get up early tomorrow and give the comet a try visually and photographically. It will definitely be harder as its lower and lower into the morning glow. Then later this week is the SAS star party at Jim Edgars Panther Creek State Park.

[matej-]

Only a few pixels worth from 48.9N yesterday morning, 2024-09-30 05:46 local summer time (03:46 UT), about 2 minutes after the comet rose above the hill. Altitude of C/2023 A3 was only 1deg43' in this picture. By the time it rose to 3deg alt, it was already swamped by morning light.

 

Could not locate it visually with 8x42 binocular, had to use astrometry.net to even find it in my subs. Back-of-the camera histogram was overblown at 4s exposure, with 2s exposure it was at 3/4 so I kept it at that. Will have to learn some Siril to make it stand out.

 

I somewhat wanted to try again this morning but cloud forecast was not promising enough to make me wake up early enough to hike to that spot.

 

This image: D810 with 135mm lens on SWSA, f/2, 2s single sub, iso400, 100% crop.

Processed in Darktable (only exposure -3EV, white balance, nikon-like base curve, crop), GIMP (further crop, added annotation).

Pixel scale 7.72 arcsec/px according to Astrometry.net analysis of uncropped sky.

Edited by matej-, 01 October 2024 - 07:39 AM.

[Diego]

Was able to see the comet again last Sunday morning at around 6:00 am. Easily seen naked eye as a small exclamation point in the sky. In the telescope at 15x it's lovely and very bright. Also managed to take 30 shots with my DSLR to later stack and process (will be a first for me). Hopefully after it's turn around the sun it will be much brighter. Planning to go to a darker site to get a nicer view and better pictures.

Edited by Diego, 02 October 2024 - 05:09 AM.

[ayadai]

2024/10/01:5:03-5:18AM. Another miraculously (relatively) clear rainy season morning. The comet was once again visible with the naked eye, but the view through the Celestron Skymaster 20x80 binoculars was spectacular. I set up the HQ6-R with the TPO180 and the QHY183C with a 2" UV/IR cut filter the night before. For ultra-wide field DSOs, preliminary results imply that this may be the little scope that could. At 4:30, I took off the TG365 (rain came around 11PM), powered everything up and slewed to Tsuchinshan-Atlas. I guess the rough polar alignment was not actually all that rough, as the slew perfectly aligned the comet right off the bat. I was able to get 189 5-second exposures, of which 80 were usable due to clouds on the horizon. Here's the resulting image (yeah, I was too lazy to rotate the camera after the challenge of getting the back focus right):

 

 

The clouds, however did add a bit of interest; here, it looks almost as if the comet is piercing the clouds:

 

 

Finally, once the sun did start to rise, we were treated with the kind of sunrise that is only seen at these latitudes:

 

Edited by ayadai, 01 October 2024 - 09:44 AM.

[randy_1701]

The fact that it was a Monday morning didn't cooperate on Sept 30th, but at 06:45 EDT on Tuesday morning October 1st, I followed up on my mentioned weekend observation and managed to catch the comet popping in and out of thin clouds on my Eastern tree line, similar location to my weekend observation, again near 33 degrees North Latitude.  C2003/A3 appeared to me to be a bit brighter than with my Sunday morning views, but as I was using more powerful binoculars, this time, that could be a factor.

 

This time it was joined by the  T H I N N E S T of waning crescent Moons just to the left of the comet, as I also noted in ayadai's earlier beautiful photo of the sunrise, above!

 

No photo this time, as I tried but failed to capture the thin Moon, due mostly to the fact that I had a more cumbersome Monopod rather than a full tripod in use, due to time constraints.

 

Equipment:
VERY vintage Union/Japan 15x70 binoculars (found these in a local estate sale!)
Manfroto monopod with Manfroto pistol grip ball head.

 

I continue holding out hope and really looking forward to an impressive "sky show" from this comet's upcoming "evening sky" appearance.

 

Regards and Clear Skies

Randy in South Carolina

[wargrafix]

The comet this morning was less "Where's Waldo? and more There's Waldo!"

[tytinrarevnik]

From 35S latitude I got up at 5am with a clear sky forecast, finally. The sky was perfectly clear. I'm not a morning person so first I said hello to Orion, doing a handstand, who I haven't seen for ages, then climbed into the garden and saw the comet and tail easily with the naked eye at 7 deg altitude, as it rose above the hills on my horizon. The description by Diego of an exclamation point sitting just above the horizon is perfect! It was a better view through 10x50 binos, but being 5am I was a little shaky with them handheld. By the time I put them on the monopod the sky had brightened a touch and it was less visible through the naked eye, and only 5 mins later I could only see it through the binos.

Stellarium was so useful to plan this, I had to find exactly the right spot in my backyard with the lowest local horizon in the right direction, and to find the right 5 minute window. A test run last night watching Orion's belt rise in almost exactly the same spot helped me to get the timing perfect. I'm new to comet observing as an adult, so I have memories of several fruitless attempts many many years ago, with no instructions other than "low in the eastern/western sky". This was a pleasant surprise!

Looking forward to seeing it again in a few weeks.

Kent

Edited by tytinrarevnik, 01 October 2024 - 04:31 PM.

[cpman]

Managed to take a first look at this comet this morning from Austin, TX. I had to find a hill to avoid trees on the horizon, but once I was positioned right, I noticed it right pretty quickly naked-eye. With 10x42 binoculars, it was really excellent — big, long tail with a bright, condensed central coma. I could only see a little bit of tail naked-eye and that disappeared pretty quick as sunrise approached. Looks really nice in binoculars against the warm glow of dawn. I guesstimate it was around magnitude 1.5 this morning, maybe a touch brighter, which already makes it one of the brightest comets I’ve seen. Very excited to see how bright it gets as it swings around the sun!

[comets4tom]

I was able to see it the morning of September 30 and October 1 using 12 x 70mm binoculars.

The image is a crop from October 1 at 6:42 a.m. CDT using a Pentax K5 and a 55-200mm lens at about 70mm.

Transparency was much better on September 30 and clouds nearly prevented viewing on October 1.

 

Tom H.

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Edited by comets4tom, 02 October 2024 - 08:45 PM.

[kennhk]

It was a beautiful albeit windy morning today, unfortunately there were some clouds on the horizon which limited my view. Tail looks quite substantial through the 85mm lens.

 

[wargrafix]

It was a beautiful albeit windy morning today, unfortunately there were some clouds on the horizon which limited my view. Tail looks quite substantial through the 85mm lens.

  Polish_20241003_060112626.jpg

That looks like a kaiju firing a power blast

 

This comet has a distinct tail!