Comet NEOWISE

[James K]

Where I was camping in Park County last night has (to me atleast) a good dark sky & great view of the stars - with exception of very low in the northeast, a bit of light pollution from CO-Springs. The view there is spectacular compared to anything at home.

As mentioned in a previous post, my low northwest view is blocked by trees, but I wandered around a bit trying to find a spot, and pretty sure I saw part of the tail through a couple small breaks in the trees.

 

[Randy Jennings]

Here in north Texas it is very hard to see without magnification. I took this shot tonight from outside of Denton TX eith a 10 sec exposure and 300 mm lens.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Got stupid lucky with my shots last night... when I left Wichita, I was not even considering storms as part of the equation, but some popped about 70 miles to my northeast while I was shooting. I widended out to 18mm to get the distant storm and comet in the same frame when that storm decided to spit out a vivid CG from the side of the tower. I about lost my mind

 

[Jeff Duda]

Drove out to Park County near Fairplay on Saturday and was able to manage to see the comet, but it wasn't a perfect setup. I think a combination of getting out there a little later than I should have, the Tenmile/Mosquito Range rising further off the horizon than I anticipated, and some distant clouds kinda fouled up my shot. Oh, yeah, and then there was the power lines that I honestly did not notice until I stopped the car. But they ran in both directions for miles on this side of the road...FML.

But...I could see the two tails! Good enough for me.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

From the evening of July 17. Rock County, Wisconsin.

 

[John Farley]

Quite visible even with the naked eye last night in the Pagosa Springs, CO area. Of course, the lack of haze here and the ability to get away from lights helps a lot.

 

[Jeremy Perez]

This thing has been such a welcome diversion from the crummy overall plague situation and meager storm opportunities. It isn't scaled to Hale-Bopp or Hyakutake greatness, but wow is it impressive photographically and visually. From a clear dark sky I was able to make out about 17 degrees of the dust tail naked eye a couple nights ago. The ion tail was a marginal catch naked eye, but was straightforward through 15x70 binoculars. This is from 7,000 ft under very dark skies so mileage will vary based on haze and light pollution.

Visual observation sketches from the 18th:

Naked eye sketch from Robinson Crater, Arizona (ion tail visually discernible as left edge of a seemingly darker notch between the two tails:


15x70 binocular sketch, also from Robinson Crater, Arizona (ion tail clearly visible):


A couple photographs that have me loving how awesome this comet is and the opportunity to see and document it:

Morning of July 9th from Wupatki National Monument, Arizona:


Evening of July 15th from west of Ash Fork, Arizona:


More images:
8-18 July 2020
7 July 2020
6 July 2020
5 July 2020

 

[James K]

Seeing these more recent pic's (especially those by Jeff Duda & Scott Weberpal .. yep, it was deff the tail of that that I saw through the trees up in Park County on Saturday.

 

[JamesCaruso]

My son and I got a glimpse of the comet last night. Where we live in the Philadelphia suburbs, there is no way to escape light pollution without driving for hours. But we went to a field in a local park to get a decent view of the NW sky without being too close to any trees or buildings. It took a long time to find it and was really not visible with the naked eye but we were able to find it with binoculars. It’s weird, I don’t know if anybody else had this experience, but although I said I couldn’t see it with the naked eye there were times that I could sort of see a faint streak, almost like a wisp of cloud, out of my peripheral vision, but then when I tried to focus on it I couldn’t see it without binoculars. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see what basically looked like a star with a streak attached (almost looked as if it were a flashlight shining its beam upward) and to know we were seeing a comet. Weren‘t able to see anything like the pictures posted here. It was more like when you see a star and it’s nice to know that it’s a planet but as far as visuals it’s still just a star. Although of course stars don’t have tails so that was pretty cool!

I have a digital SLR and usually use it in an automatic mode, I don’t know much about manual settings, but did set it to “bulb” and held the shutter open long enough to capture a slightly blurred and discolored image. Nothing even worth mentioning compared to the amazing shots you all got, it was kind of like one of those photographs that purports to capture a ghost on film, but at least enough to prove we saw it and save the memory.

The best part was sharing it with my son, who is 17. He has not yet been storm chasing with me so it was nice to share that experience of being out there on a dark night where it’s just you and the sky, reminiscent of that feeling you get on those nights on the Plains under a quiet starry sky while a flashing supercell chugs away in the distance... It was great to see him persist in trying to find it, in fact he located it first. Great to see his awe and wonder at the heavens. It was cool because it wasn’t just there to be so easily seen, there was the satisfaction of having to search it out, a memorable mini “quest” of sorts...

Not sure if I will head out to see it again. It’s supposed to be at its highest point in the sky on July 23 but I don’t imagine that will change its appearance or make it any easier to see.

 

[Randy Jennings]

It’s weird, I don’t know if anybody else had this experience, but although I said I couldn’t see it with the naked eye there were times that I could sort of see a faint streak, almost like a wisp of cloud, out of my peripheral vision, but then when I tried to focus on it I couldn’t see it without binoculars.

I had the exact same experience on the outskirts of the DFW metroplex.

 

[Jeremy Perez]

James and Randy, that peripheral vision experience you mentioned—averted vision—is something that really works well for observing faint, extended objects like the comet. Apologies if this is 'splainy...it's just incredibly useful at night. Amateur astronomers use that technique a lot to detect and resolve details visually. Just look off to the side and around the object rather than directly at it, so it gets situated on the surrounding retina in your eye instead of the central fovea which is way less sensitive to faint light. It's not as satisfying as being able to look straight at a thing, but it's fascinating and very useful in its own way to see an object blossom in size and brightness just by looking a bit to the side.

Also, Randy, what a great experience with your son!

 

[Rick Schmidt]

This photo of Comet NEOWISE was taken last Saturday night, NW of Topeka, at one of our state lakes. I almost gave up on going because I thought it would be too cloudy. But the clouds,(and the storms), held off for awhile. Exp.-- 3 sec. @ f/2, 1600 ISO, processed on Photoshop.

 

[John Farley]

My wife said she could see it better with her peripheral vision, too. To me, no difference.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

I had the exact same experience on the outskirts of the DFW metroplex.

Peripheral vision is significantly stronger than direct vision when it comes to low light.

Why is my peripheral vision better for seeing in the dark?

I often walk around my house at night with the lights turned off and one night I noticed that looking straight at an object with very little light available made the object disappear from sight but...

biology.stackexchange.com

 

[Matthew Fischer]

I was up in Northern Wisconsin with limited space on a dock to shoot Neowise. I managed to get a few shots of the comet. Here are some of my best images I caught of Neowise. Hopefully tonight Illinois will clear out and I can get a few more shots of this comet.