Time to take a break from the constant gaslighting of Tramp and his minions, the challenges and anxieties caused by COVID-19, and fascism openly walking the streets of Portland as America’s new Gestapo kidnaps citizens, to remind ourselves that beautiful things still happen in this world no matter how poorly humans decide to treat each other.
It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and one place to look (at least for the next week or two) is above the northwestern horizon about when twilight sets in. There, fuzzy and dim to the unaided eye, you'll find comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) roughly midway between the horizon and the Big Dipper.
The comet has a nucleus roughly 3 miles in diameter, a frozen block of dust, rock and ice leftover from the origins of the solar system that was discovered on March 27th by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, a satellite on a mission to observe near-earth asteroids. On a 6,800-year elliptical orbit, the comet has already passed closely around the sun and is now heading out of the solar system, making its closest approach to earth on July 22nd at a distance of about 64 million miles.
The comet is currently sporting a long, split tail that should be easily seen with binoculars, a small telescope, or in the case of the headline image above, a camera with a 100mm lens. Darker skies are best to view the full length of the yellowish dust tail, but the comet should be visible even in slightly light-polluted suburban skies (your mileage may vary).
For viewing with unaided eyes, try looking just off-center rather than directly at the comet: the most light-sensitive part of your retina is in that area, and you’ll be surprised how much more of the tail you can see by using this approach.
Grab your binoculars, camera or just a friend and head out to see this wonderful display of celestial mechanics.
Share your own photos of comet NEOWISE in the comments below.