Comet C/2023 A3 visible in STEREO HI images

Forums Comets Comet C/2023 A3 visible in STEREO HI images

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  • #625527
    Nick James
    Participant

    The comet entered the STEREO HI-1 field of view on October 4 and was visible as a very bright smudge in the highly compressed beacon images. The full-res FITS files from that day are now available and the attached is a log stretch of an image taken at 2328 UTC. The comet’s head saturates the sensor but the bright dust tail is not saturated.

    I’ll be making daily animations of the uncompressed STEREO FITS images while the comet is in the field of view and you can find them here:

    https://nickdjames.com/STEREO/

    The filenames are YYYYMMDD.gif

    #625557
    Mark Phillips
    Participant

    Starting to appear on SOHO LASCO C3 now, right hand edge.
    Mark

    #625565
    Nick James
    Participant

    Here’s the latest uncompressed FITS from the STEREO HI. This is from Oct 5th at 23:28. Lots of nice tail detail visible.

    #625593
    Nick James
    Participant

    And from October 6 at 2338 UTC. Lots of detail visible in that broad tail. STEREO-A is currently 26 deg ahead of us along the ecliptic so it is seeing the comet from a different point of view. Tomorrow (Oct 9) is the date of conjunction. The comet will then pull away from the Sun into the evening sky.

    #625624
    Bill Barton
    Participant

    Now looking a lot more spectacular in SoHO LASCO C3.

    #625629
    Nick James
    Participant

    This is the latest STEREO HI image from 2328 on October 7. The tail structure from the viewpoint of STEREO is now very complex.

    #625634
    David Strange
    Participant

    In the latest SOHO LASCO C3 images the tail does not yet seem to be blowing away in an anti-solar direction, presumably this is due to speed of comet.
    I was hoping to see a tail stretching out above the western horizon tonight!

    David

    #625635
    David Strange
    Participant

    Just found Jonathan’s link to this great simulation of tail orientation:

    https://hdr-astrophotography.com/comet-tails-simulations/

    Probably need to wait until 14th October until tail swings around in a darker sky.

    David

    #625643
    Nick James
    Participant

    Yes, the tail geometry changes very quickly over the next few days. The most recent animation from STEREO shows how quickly the tail is swinging around from its viewpoint.

    https://nickdjames.com/STEREO/20241008.gif

    #625748
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    Just spotted the comet naked eye here in Corfu. Faint fan-shaped tail about 0.5 deg long

    #625749
    Brian Mills
    Participant

    Comet C/2023 A3 imaged from Hildenborough, Kent this evening.
    Canon 700D with 70mm telephoto
    Brian Mills

    #625751
    Nick James
    Participant

    Thanks to everyone who managed to observe the comet last night. There are some great images here and in the gallery. It looks like there was a lucky break in the weather over NW Europe. The comet will now be moving into darker skies and the tail will be getting longer in the evening sky over the next few days so definitely worth making the effort.

    I’m very envious. I’m on La Palma at the moment and it was raining at the top of the mountain yesterday evening. The forecast isn’t brilliant for tonight either!

    #625752
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    Looks like I got out just in time! I flew back to the UK on Thursday.

    To be fair, La Palma badly needs some rain.

    #625754
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    Significantly easier to see this evening.
    Approx 5 deg long tail.
    Easy naked eye target tonight.
    Fab in my 2×54 binos

    #625771
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    0.5 sec exposure with the iPhone this evening from Paxos island, Greece.

    #625774
    James Lancashire
    Participant

    Meanwhile BBC has shared a timelapse with the comet circled in case of any doubt!
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c4gl3xlwypjo

    #625775
    Robin Leadbeater
    Participant

    Oh Dear, I see BBC Lead Weather Presenter Simon King is suggesting looking for the comet tonight “Around Sunset at 18:00-18:30 BST”.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cq5e6jne670o
    There is going to be a lot of disappointed people giving up at 18:30 when they could have had a nice view an hour later! There is a Twitter (x) link but I don’t use that. Anyone care to put him straight on this?

    Cheers
    Robin

    #625793
    Michael O’Connell
    Participant

    The motion of the comet is quite apparent each evening.

    #625802
    Nick James
    Participant

    Torrential rain this evening for me on La Palma so I have spent some time putting together this mosaic of the comet based on images from my ASI2600MC + RedCat 51 taken last night (Oct 14). Each panel is approx. 5×4 deg and the total image is 17.3 x 4.2 kpix:

    https://nickdjames.com/Comets/2024/2023a3_20231014_ndj.jpg

    If you zoom in you will find Comet 13P/Olbers about midway along the bottom of the image, also the globular M5 and quite a few galaxies. 13P looks very puny compared to C/2023 A3.

    #625848
    Dr Paul Leyland
    Participant

    Torrential rain this evening for me on La Palma

    Torrential rain and high winds for me that evening brought down the box of electronics on the microwave dish providing internet connectivity. Last night a friend discovered it lying in a puddle of water. Verimax have already fixed things, which is excellent service by a ISP, given that they only learned about the issue less than 6 hours ago.

    Relevance to comets? Kevin Hills is an avid observer and his robotic observatory is on my site, sharing the internet link with me.

    Now fixed. Impressive service from Verimax — under 4 hours from notification to a working connection.

    • This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Dr Paul Leyland. Reason: Add final para
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