The world's nonsense keeping you awake in middle of the night? Good news. Go outside and see this two-tail comet A two-pronged comet with billowing tails of gas and dust will streak across the sky this month. If you're in the northern hemisphere, and gazing up at the right moment – around 4am local time, July 10 to 15, looking northeast; and potentially an hour after sunset, July 14 to 23, looking northwest – you should catch a glimpse …
Not to mention that the light pollution from ElReg's readers' collection of devices will wipe out any chance of seeing it even if the weather cooperates. Which it never does.
Yet another event that we'll have to "experience" via someone else's pictures.
Cheers to the comet for avoiding travel restrictions.
"You won't see it where you are (the UK) because it will be raining."
The weather has been quite nice recently. This explains why it's now cloudy with intermittent rain and likely to remain so for a while. I wonder if the newly BREXITed Britain can get a nice trade deal with Oz? We could export rain and buy lamb.
In the late 60s or early 70s my Dad woke me in the early hours and I noticed my curtains were glowing green! After being cajoled into some warm gear we popped outside to see a bright green comet that lit the whole countryside up, I'm in a dark sky area now but if its near the horizon these bloody security lights the farms have may be a problem - good way to find you have cataracts these days when you cant get to the opticians!
I saw it from a playing field near my town centre. Once you knew where to look it was fairly obvious with the naked eye. I did find it at first by scanning with my binoculars checking each star for a bit a fuzziness when the tail appeared spread right across my field of view. A real WOAH moment.
It was visible to the naked eye in SE England about midnight last night even despite some low haze and the inevitable sky glow. It was sitting very low on the horizon and quite easy to spot.
No of course I didn't have my camera with me! I got home, charged it and now that the forecast for the next few days is cloudy.
Having tried - and failed - to see it in Berlin[1] on Friday night (I wanted to show granddaughter, who was highly excited at the prospect but fell asleep around half past ten) managed to see it last night (Sunday) from Hemel in the UK. There's a convenient gap in the houses and the council have recently fitted LED streetlamps (though one of my neighbours insists on an outside spotlight that triggers on every passing snail)...
But even at eleven, it's so close to setting that there is still significant light from the sun. Once found, it's a barely visible naked eye object from here, but binoculars show it clearly. It should be higher in the sky tonight, and the forecast is clear, so I'll drag the 6" celestron out and maybe stick a camera with a long lens...
[1] we were hoping for the triple of the ISS, the comet, and maybe an early Perseid meteor... I suppose one out of three ain't bad!
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