Per the article: “It is always dangerous to count cometary chickens before they are hatched but it really does look as if we will have a nice comet in the evening sky in the middle of October”
https://britastro.org/section_news_item/comet-c-2023-a3-tsuchinshan-atlas-looking-good-for-october
The comet looked great from Bald Peak State Park, Oregon Saturday Oct 12 evening. Could even see a bit of tale naked eye. Click on image for photo
details. TPE setup for Sunday Oct 13
I’m looking for a way to explore shots of the comet and want to move my red pin to various locations and visualize what geogrpahic features might have interesting sight lines. For example, I can see the comet from a location in Fort Collins, but I want to find a spot where I can get Longs Peak in the shot so I want to move my red pin to the right location and time.
What’s the best way to use PE to accomplish this?
Hi Kevin,
You can get the approximate location of the comet from the graphic on this page from Sky & Telescope:
So, to get the comet above Longs Peak, you’ll want a location more or less due east of the summit - cross check your location with the date of shooting as per the graphic, as for later dates, you’d need to move slightly farther north.
For Oct 14-15, the altitude suggested by the graphic is around 15-20 degrees above the horizon (inferred from Arcturus position using the star overlay in TPE for iOS).
You can use the geodetics or sight line tools to confirm you’re far enough away from Longs for the comet to appear above the summit, and also to check the bearing of your shooting location.
I’m back from cloudy Germany tomorrow and hope to head out Wednesday to shoot it - maybe see you out there!
Shot this photo of the A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas comet last night up in the mountains Northwest of Phoenix. If you look closely, you can see a very faint line emanating from the comet in the opposite direction from the tail, interestingly enough called the anti-tail. Also, if you look closely, you will see a few very faint streaks across the photo which I assume are StarLink satellites. This was a 25 second exposure.
Very nice. I’m guessing this was tracked?
Just arrived back in Colorado this evening from Germany. I managed to stay awake long enough to shoot the comet.
Lots of smoke hanging around today and a near full moon, so conditions weren’t ideal, but hopefully I can get something with a little processing.
It took a while for me to be able to see it this evening…
Yes, it was tracked. Moon glow was definitely a problem but we got far enough from Phoenix to get away from most of the other light pollution. Up in the mountains too to get a good shot of the horizon and no clouds.
Thanks Stephen. I’ll play with it more. I estimated I needed to be around Johnstown, but ended up in Mead on Monday.
Looking good! It should be slightly farther to the south tonight, so a slightly more northerly location should still put it just to the left of Longs.
Here’s the view from behind my house last night in Boulder (other houses in the way, so a longer telephoto shot):
Single frame, 2s at f/4, ISO 5000. De-Starlinked plus noise reduction in LR, then sharpened in Topaz.
I got a couple of good shots of the comet 10/15, in spite of clouds. Then we had several days of perfectly clear skies so I just had to go out again a add the MW to the scene. This is 10/20 from a nearby state park with Bortle 5 looking towards 4 skies. Since I was tracking I had to make sure I was clear of the trees on the right when I set up (in daylight). I checked Stellarium to get the comet EL/AZ and of course with PE I could sight that and visualize the MW. Had to set the tracker with a compass as it was too early to see Polaris. This shot was tracked 60sec f/2.2 ISO 1000 for the sky and 120 f/4 for the FG with a 24mm. I am tempted to go out again. Stellarium shows it at 40degrees EL at 7:30 tonight.
