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Perhaps I have missed it but I haven’t seen much on the website about this comet. Do we have some predictions about how bright it will get, what it’s path is and how best we can see it? Thanks.
Hi Duncan,
This comet is really close to the Sun in the sky so even if it does get bright it will be hard to find. It is currently very low in the morning sky in Leo but will soon move to very low in the evening sky as it approaches perihelion.
There was some discussion of it in the forum and on the comet section mailing list here:
https://britastro.org/forums/topic/a-good-year-for-japanese-astronomers
https://www.simplelists.com/baa-comet/msg/23154034/and there are plenty of images in our archive here:
Thanks Nick. I did see this other forum post but I missed the detail about it remaining close to the sun. When I first read it I thought it was a discussion about visual comet finders versus automated surveys. I think it would be useful to have a specific news item that just describes what is going on with this comet in slightly more layman’s terms. Clearly some people are getting good pictures of it but it means getting up an hour before twilight?
I think it is annoying that this comet is getting heralded in the press as yet another comet for the general public to see but it sounds like it is anything but easy to follow.
Yes, you’re right, the media have hyped this comet up a lot and for most people it would be a real challenge since it is so close to the Sun in the sky. The elongation is now rapidly decreasing as it heads for perihelion so you will need very clear skies and a very low horizon and, preferably, a convenient mountain to see it over the next couple of weeks. It is an interesting object though and it does have a relatively short period (440 years) so I really should get a news item on the website. I’ll have a go at preparing something over the next few days.
This amazing image of it showing a 10 degree tail was taken from Austria this morning (Sept 7):
https://groups.io/g/comets-ml/message/31656
Michael Jaeger is one of the best comet imagers in the world and he has an excellent site.
That’s a pretty amazing picture and a fantastic tail only marred by the curse of the satellite trail.
Too low for a spectrum from me but here is one by Christian Buil this morning
https://groups.io/g/Solex-project/topic/101209364
The usual emission bands but not much dust and no obvious sodium despite it being close enough to the sun, at a similar distance to this spectrum of 2020 F3
https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20200713_224000_2e77e0992eb70386Cheers
RobinThis is a periodic comet which has been close to the Sun many times. Such comets tend to have a low dust/gas ratio which doesn’t bode well for a bright dust tail post-perihelion. It certainly has an impressive gas tail at the moment and it will be interesting to see how that develops over the next few weeks. Jaeger’s image shows it at 10 deg long so it might be visible in darker skies once the head has set.
Thanks very much for your detailed news item about the comet. I did try to find it Sunday morning but even though we have had some “clear skies” we have been plagued by hazy conditions and there was too much murk near the horizon to make it possible to view anything. I will try again, weather permitting, when it moves round to the evening sky in a few days time.
I’m not expecting that C/2023 P1 will look anything like this but there have been reports of bright objects near the Sun in the past which may have been comets. A nice example is the object of 1921 seen from Mount Hamilton and possibly other places that is reported here:
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1921JRASC..15..364P
Anyone who has been to Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton can imagine that party looking out to the west towards the Pacific and seeing this mystery object appear briefly at sunset. We’ll probably never know what it was but they were experienced observers and a comet is a good bet.
By coincidence I’m on La Palma at the moment. Last night I went up to the visitors’ centre which is around 2100m to look for the comet. Unfortunately there was a lot of cirrus out over the ocean in that direction but I did get a few images of the comet through thinner gaps. This one:
https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20230916_102938_2de129e1ecfdd06f
is a single 2s exposure with FoV 4×3 deg. The comet was 0.25 degrees above the theoretical horizon but refraction and my altitude made it appear more than a degree up.
It certainly wasn’t spectacular and it wasn’t visible in binoculars but it does show a bit of a tail if you zoom in.
The comet has been in the STEREO HI1 field of view since 17th Sept. The full res data is now available for the 17th and 18th.
Here’s an example for Sept 18:
http://nickdjames.com/STEREO/20230918.gif
Two nice tails.
Nick.
STEREO data for the 19th and 20th:
https://nickdjames.com/STEREO/20230919.gif
https://nickdjames.com/STEREO/20230920.gifBy coincidence I’m on La Palma at the moment.
What a shame. I flew out of La Palma on the 16th. We could have met up at my place and have shown you my observatory if the timing had been more convenient.
I’m in LP for all of February and all of August every year. How many weeks before or after those depends on what I feel like closer to the dates.
Anyone who happens to be in the district is welcome to drop by. Just let me know at least a day in advance …
(Sorry, that this is off-topic but I don’t know where else to make the offer.)
The comet is still visible in the STEREO HI images but it has faded considerably and it is moving much more slowly as it pulls away from the Sun. It should theoretically be visible from the southern hemisphere but the elongation is still small and it is no longer very bright so very few observations have been received.
https://britastro.org/cometobs/2023p1/thumbnails.html
The two bright objects above the comet are Mars and Spica.
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