In response to the July 20 Campus Chronicle article about Comet Neowise, Richard Monda, instructor in the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, provided additional information:
Moonlight will start to interfere with seeing the comet in the evening sky about midweek. The moon sets on Tuesday (July 21) about the time the sky gets dark and it sets on Wednesday about 10 p.m. Therefore, it really will not be until Thursday that the moon is still in the sky when it is best to see the comet.
However, since the comet is under the Big Dipper, a star picture that never sets from our location on Earth, the comet continues to be above the horizon throughout the night but only gets lower in the the sky. By dawn, the sky has rotated so the comet is also visible low in the predawn sky (4 a.m.) in the north rather than the northwest in the evening. Nonetheless, a dark sky is necessary to see the comet with the unaided eye.
Comet Neowise was discovered in late March by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope in orbit around the Earth in an extended mission called Neowise. The comet passed around the sun on July 3 and is on its way out of the solar system not to be back for about 6700 years.
Below is an image from Sky & Telescope Magazine that includes a star map of the comet’s position, followed by the photos taken by Monda. (Click on an image to enlarge it.)
Comet Neowise
Comet Neowise showing ion tail (straight, slightly bluish tail) and dust tail (curving tail). To the lower left of the comet is a meteor trail and to the left of the comet is a satellite trail. (The comet’s tails can also be seen somewhat fainter in Photo 1.)
Comet Neowise with a trail from the International Space Station. (If you zoom in on the left side of the trail you can see some of the solar panels on the ISS or see photo 3b.) Faint, greenish streaks in the image such as the one in the comet’s tail are fireflies.
Comet Neowise with ISS enlarged (inset)
After the comet got low I turned the camera around and photographed the Sagittarius region showing the nucleus of the Milky Way. The bright “star” is Jupiter and the “star” to the left of Jupiter is Saturn. The center of MW is near the star that makes the spout of the Sagittarius teapot asterism (star pattern). See photo 4b for annotation.
Photo 4a with annotation.
Published: Tue, 21 Jul 2020 12:05:20 +0000 by d.gardner