I only recently found out that the Neowise comet is visible for a little while. Gotta go out of my way to view eclipses and comets, you know.
So I woke up about 1:30 a.m. a few nights ago and went out in the back yard to see if I could observe it. When you live on the very south end of a city of over 100,000 people and want to look at a rather pale comet that is currently to the north of you, you're not going to see anything due to the light pollution. I can see the brighter stars from there, like those of the big dipper, but forget seeing the comet, even with binoculars.
Getting more serious about it, last night as it was starting to get dark, my wife and I headed north through the mountains toward Idaho City to see if we could find a place dark enough and flat enough to see it. I wanted to see if I could photograph it. All of the spots we came upon with a good enough view to the north had too many lights around them and all of the spots that were dark enough had mountains or pine trees in the way. Finally just past Idaho city we found a potential spot, stopped, and tried to see it.
I had a photo of how to observe it on my phone. Find the big dipper, look directly down from it about the distance of half of the dipper and handle, and it should be there. After staring at that area for half a minute, we could see something fuzzy that must be it. After letting our eyes adjust a couple of minutes more it was clearly visible. It's not real bright, but if you get somewhere dark enough you can see it with the naked eye. Anywhere dark enough to see the Milky Way is dark enough to see the comet.
I made repeated attempts to photograph it with my digital camera and utterly failed at that. You might be able to do it with a digital SLR, but my Canon SX-50 camera is 100% digital, so it was impossible to aim it using the viewfinder and maximum exposure is only 15 seconds. I managed a couple of photos that clearly show all of the stars of the big dipper, but the rest are either totally black or black with smears where the stars should be, even though it was on a tripod.
Still, we felt the trip was worth it to personally see another comet.
If you have the chance the next few nights, go someplace dark where you can see to the north near the horizon and see the comet. It's best to observe it when it first gets dark enough or in the morning just before it starts to get light. Apparently it rotates below the horizon in between.
Happy comet hunting.
So I woke up about 1:30 a.m. a few nights ago and went out in the back yard to see if I could observe it. When you live on the very south end of a city of over 100,000 people and want to look at a rather pale comet that is currently to the north of you, you're not going to see anything due to the light pollution. I can see the brighter stars from there, like those of the big dipper, but forget seeing the comet, even with binoculars.
Getting more serious about it, last night as it was starting to get dark, my wife and I headed north through the mountains toward Idaho City to see if we could find a place dark enough and flat enough to see it. I wanted to see if I could photograph it. All of the spots we came upon with a good enough view to the north had too many lights around them and all of the spots that were dark enough had mountains or pine trees in the way. Finally just past Idaho city we found a potential spot, stopped, and tried to see it.
I had a photo of how to observe it on my phone. Find the big dipper, look directly down from it about the distance of half of the dipper and handle, and it should be there. After staring at that area for half a minute, we could see something fuzzy that must be it. After letting our eyes adjust a couple of minutes more it was clearly visible. It's not real bright, but if you get somewhere dark enough you can see it with the naked eye. Anywhere dark enough to see the Milky Way is dark enough to see the comet.
I made repeated attempts to photograph it with my digital camera and utterly failed at that. You might be able to do it with a digital SLR, but my Canon SX-50 camera is 100% digital, so it was impossible to aim it using the viewfinder and maximum exposure is only 15 seconds. I managed a couple of photos that clearly show all of the stars of the big dipper, but the rest are either totally black or black with smears where the stars should be, even though it was on a tripod.
Still, we felt the trip was worth it to personally see another comet.
If you have the chance the next few nights, go someplace dark where you can see to the north near the horizon and see the comet. It's best to observe it when it first gets dark enough or in the morning just before it starts to get light. Apparently it rotates below the horizon in between.
Happy comet hunting.
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