The images from the southern hemisphere are so promising that amateur astronomers in this country will be looking for the comet’s tail in the next few days.C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas“Keep an eye out. It could be low on the horizon impressively long tail can already be seen.
How to best see the comet
The best conditions for seeing the comet begin this weekend. From Saturday, October 12th, The celestial body shows itself in all its splendor at dusk. The comet should be visible in the sky if you follow gen west looking towards the setting sun.
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Provided the weather cooperates. However, it doesn’t look like that everywhere, at least at the weekend. Maybe it’s okay Southern and Eastern Austria a look at the comet. Away Montag There should then be better opportunities for observation if fields of fog do not obstruct the view of the celestial spectacle.
Particularly long tail
Was discovered “Tsuchinshan-Atlas“In early 2023 from observatories in China and South Africa. The object comes from the Oort clouda spherical shell-shaped collection of objects in the outer reaches of the solar system, and orbits the sun on one extremely long tracksaid Alexander Pikhard from the (IT IS).
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The comet has its closest point to the sun (perihelion). 27. September reached, but could not yet be seen from Central Europe at that time. On the Southern Hemisphere The comet, on the other hand, had already appeared.
“As expected, as in the textbook, the comet deviated from both the brightness as well as that appearance developed,” explained the comet expert and chairman of the (Lower Austria), Michael Jäger, to the APA.
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Visible to the naked eye
He has been with colleagues in the past few days Namibia observed and photographed from “Tsuchinshan Atlas”. The comet was as bright as the brightest stars in the sky, the very long tail more than that 20 degrees in the sky been long. For comparison: the apparent diameter of the moon is approximately half a degree.
Jäger expects “that the comet will be very… transparent sky “From the evening of October 12th, it will appear just above the western horizon as an object of the 2nd magnitude (i.e. about as bright as the Polar Star, note)”.
Pikhard assumes that “Tsuchinshan Atlas” with the naked eye in the dusk can be seen and will remain so for a good week before he becomes too weak and only with one Binoculars can be seen. But even in the first days of clear vision, binoculars are advisable and help find the comet at dusk, says Pikhard.
According to Jäger, he could Tail of the comet be spectacularly long – “definitely significantly longer than the 20 degrees we had in Namibia”. We will know more as soon as the comet appears in our evening sky.
People unload in Martinsberg (Lower Austria). next Saturday always to watch together when the weather is right. The WAA also organizes observation evenings on the site, weather conditions permitting Wiener Sophienalpe in Wien-Penzing.
