(Click images to enlarge if you can't see what I was seeing.)
July 17, 2020
3 occasions — this morning at sunrise — for thinking — if only momentarily — is that the comet?
(Click images to enlarge if you can't see what I was seeing.)
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54 comments:
It’s the good luck shaped Moon that holds the blessings in.
I believe the thing to the right of the moon in the first picture is Venus.
I think the thing in the second picture is a plane.
It's the third picture that I think has some potential. Hardest to see in that one but click and click again.
The moon and Venus. An aeroplane. And... don't see anything in the third.
What do I win?
I was in a perfect place to view the comet last night. Even had the 15" set up.
Damn clouds.
The second is definitely not a comet, comet tails always point from the head, away from the sun.
I think the comet is visible just after sunset, so not visible in the AM.
We saw the comet last night. It is more vertical than your picture but with a slight arc. We looked about an hour and a half after sunset (about 9:30 pm). We are in the LA area. You must have binoculars to see it. Look low in the horizon about 10 degrees in the northwest. It is worth the effort.
That third one has potential with the object near the horizon, but is that the correct direction? Here the comet has been visible low in the northwest sky.
Yes, that is Venus.
I'd be surprised if you could see the comet with the sky that bright, but it might be the nucleus. What time was the picture taken? Is it to the North East?
Yup. Neowise.
A followup: If you tell me what time that photo was taken I can tell you how high above the horizon the comet was.
The comet is no longer visible before sunrise as it has gone around the backside of the sun. It has emerged on the other side and is now visible in the evening after sunset. It should be best seen about 80 minutes after sunset below Ursa Major roughly in the NW.
https://wkow.com/2020/07/12/how-to-catch-a-peek-of-comet-neowise-a-rare-event/
The comet is an evening object now, and it will be in the North. What direction were you looking in the third picture.
According to this:
https://www.space.com/comet-neowise-visibility-july-2020.html
...it would be very low in the North-Northeast sky. But the glow of sunrise seems pretty bright. Maybe that's just the way the photos look and it was actually darker.
Scroll down to the chart
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/comet-neowise-dazzles-at-dusk/
"I'd be surprised if you could see the comet with the sky that bright..."
You don't know how bright the sky was. The camera adjusts quite a lot to low light.
The 3rd picture was taken at 5:26 — 7 minutes before sunrise.
If you can't see the white dot in the 3rd picture, it's close to the center — slightly up and to the right of the center.
"...it would be very low in the North-Northeast sky."
That's where the dot is in the 3rd photo.
The good photos you're seeing on line are done with long exposures.
"It should be best seen about 80 minutes after sunset..."
Way too late at night for me!
It should be best seen about 80 minutes after sunset below Ursa Major roughly in the NW
For those in Rio Linda, Ursa Major is the "Big Dipper".
Saw it last night through binoculars. Needed them because it is not quite bright enough to power through lower horizon light pollution. Neowise (the comet's name) will climb every night and a little to the left. Has a very wide tail. (actually two, but it wasn't bright enough to resolve the twin in my binoculars. Just overall "wide")
I estimate that at 5:26am today the comet head was at an altitude of 15-degrees and an azimuth of 32-degrees NE. Here's the finder chart I used: Comet Neowise
I think you caught the comet.
Nice comet pic on today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.
I think the third photo is showing Mercury.
Saw the comet last night an hour and a half after sunset. It is dim and you have to wait until the stars come out before you can see it, at least with my aging eyes you do, and the horizon is usually lit up a bit by lights. It was about half way between the bottom of the big dipper and the horizon. Should be higher up in a couple of days, which will make things easier, but maybe dimmer as well.
Upon reflection, I have a concern that that object is too low, but I don't know how to factor in that it's a wide angle shot. Here's how to estimate angles in the sky. Do you think it was about 15-degrees above the horizon?
I believe the third object is a zippo lighter with a perpetual flame. You know, the kind they sell in Madison.
Blogger Lance said..."I think the third photo is showing Mercury."
You might be right. At 5:26 Mercury was 11.2-degrees above the horizon at E 73-degrees. So that's a pretty big difference in a azimuth. Should be able to sort it out from that.
Blogger Mr. Forward said...
I believe the third object is a zippo lighter with a perpetual flame. You know, the kind they sell in Madison.
Althea Bernstein, quietly disappearing from media. Another fake hate crime? Girl fucks up, lies to mamma about it, mom publicizes, girl sticks to lie.
Way too late at night for me!
Ha- we have a nephew who wasn't exposed to any astronomy in school so we forced ourselves to stay up till the crack of 9:40pm to see it.
More impressive than I expected- a good tail. We're pretty dark though- your mileage may vary...
Look for it in the evening, off to the northwest, starting about 45 minutes after sunset. It's right underneath the Big Dipper.
OOPS! My very bad. I hadn't set my astronomy program back to Madison. It was set to up north, where we are now.
In Madison at 5:26 my estimate of the comet position is altitude 12-degrees, azimuth NE 34-degrees. This is an estimate because I need to transpose from the finder chart to the astronomy software and the star field is pretty sparse where the comet is. Mercury is altitude 10.4-degrees, azimuth E 72.6-degrees.
I am sorry for the earlier, erroneous data.
Michael Madigan is corrupt.
Another Democratic who leveraged government for personal gain.
Hunter Biden understands.
Illinois deserves a lot of federal indictments.
Free Chicago and Cook County from the corruption.
Democratics are the worst.
I have an ATN 3ed gen night vision monocle with a 3x screw on lens. Does great with the comet. also great for Andromeda.
I believe the bright dot in your photos is Mercury, not Venus.
For proof, consult Astronomy Magazine's "The Sky This Week" column. First mention of early morning sightings is for tomorrow, Saturday, but that's close enough - things in the sky don't move around that quickly such that Mercury all of a sudden replaces Venus.
https://astronomy.com/news/observing/2020/07/the-sky-this-week-from-july-17-to-24
By the way, this column appears every Friday in the magazine if you're interested.
— is that the comet?
Thinking of getting away??
The 3rd photo caught Mercury.
Right now the comet is trailing the sun, so when the sun first comes over the horizon at dawn, the comet is still below the horizon.
When the sun sets, the trailing comet is still above the NW horizon. We saw it last night; faint and below the Big Dipper about 90 minutes after the sunset in N. Calif. Nice big tail, best seen with binoculars.
SkyView Lite is a great free phone app for identifying individual stars and planets wherever you are. Doen't show the comet, though.
In the first photo, the planet next to moon this morning was Venus, not Mercury. Mercury is much lower.
"Right now the comet is trailing the sun, so when the sun first comes over the horizon at dawn, the comet is still below the horizon."
I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. Comet was above the horizon to the NE this morning at sunrise.
I believe comet tails point away from the sun
"I believe the bright dot in your photos is Mercury, not Venus."
Are you talking about the first photograph or the third? I think the first is Venus (as I said up top), but people are saying the third photo is Mercury.
If you get a chance tomorrow, take a compass, stand in the same spot, and take a bearing where the object was located. 35 degrees and it was the comet. 70+ degrees and it was Mercury.
If it's neither of those bearings it was an airplane. The airport is over there.
The 1.6 magnitude star Castor is at azimuth 53 degrees at that time (altitude of 7.8 degrees). About half as bright as the 1.1 magnitude Mercury.
Sometimes it’s nice not to have an öpinion on things. If I could I would make a blog that only put out blank posts, every week. Subscription-based of course.
I haven’t seen some of the regular denialists much lately. Where's nurse hate Anne I am? Where's variolation volunteer Pants?
I think it’s clear that protests contributed to the recent outbreaks. Maybe that reduces the desire to deny, deny, deny.
Ann: I am not an astronomer but I do gaze at the evening sky fairly often. I also read both Astronomy and Sky & Telescope magazines. I don't have the notes from either of them of what to see in the nighttime sky for this morning (Friday). However, both magazines note the following for tomorrow (Saturday):
"Saturday, July 18
The Moon and Mercury lie close together in this morning’s sky, just over 9° apart an hour before sunrise. Mercury is low in the northeast, rising higher as dawn approaches."
Also:
"Presenting an easier target, Venus is also nearby, nearly 20° high in the east. It’s a blazing magnitude –4.7, far outshining orange Aldebaran about 4° to its west in Taurus the Bull. The Moon will pass close to Venus later in the week."
So, as I read those notes, both planets may have been visible to you depending upon the direction and elevation of your observations at any particular point in time.
JohnG: You should get a "planetarium program". I run SkySafari on an iPad, which is indispensable for binoc and telescope observing, and Stellarium on a Windows desktop, just because it's beautiful.
You'll love them.
Ann Althouse said...
"It should be best seen about 80 minutes after sunset..."
Way too late at night for me!
You were asking where you should move to. I think Florida is calling you with early bird specials. But I'm afraid how you will vote.
I am not an astronomer, so I go to
earthsky.org/tonight
for clear exposition of the night skies pitched for the layperson.
Narr
Not a linker, neither
I’m pretty thrilled to learn that I noticed Mercury. So cool.
"I’m pretty thrilled to learn that I noticed Mercury. So cool."
You're convinced it's Mercury? I urge you to check with a compass. The number of times I've misidentified things is enormous.
I have been a skywatcher since I was 5-10 years old. The first time I observed Mercury was 2010, when I was 54 years old. It takes effort to get yourself to a good horizon, which is what you are doing with your sunrise photos.
I saw the comet tonight. I have old eyes so I used binoculars. I could see where it was without binoculars but with them it was spectacular. But we live in a very small town with almost no light pollution.
About 10:15 pm mountain time. Which is late for me. I stayed up special for it.
Even hubby thought it was "cool" and he could care less about such things.
Ken B said...
I haven’t seen some of the regular denialists much lately. Where's nurse hate Anne I am? Where's variolation volunteer Pants?
I often think that people are being unnecessarily unkind to you. Then I read what you write. As far as that goes, you make a rod for your own back.
Hello Ann: If you're curiosity has been triggered by your possible sightings of 2 planets the other morning then this article from Popular Mechanics Magazine may be of interest: Five Planets Will Be Visible Without A Telescope This Weekend.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/telescopes/a33337385/see-five-planets-sky-july-19-2020/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_pop&utm_medium=email&date=071820&utm_campaign=nl20942186&src=nl
Worth a look since you're up already.
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