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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
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Starting to appear on SOHO LASCO C3 now, right hand edge.
MarkAttachments:
Here’s the latest uncompressed FITS from the STEREO HI. This is from Oct 5th at 23:28. Lots of nice tail detail visible.
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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.
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Now looking a lot more spectacular in SoHO LASCO C3.
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This is the latest STEREO HI image from 2328 on October 7. The tail structure from the viewpoint of STEREO is now very complex.
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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
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
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.
Comet C/2023 A3 imaged from Hildenborough, Kent this evening.
Canon 700D with 70mm telephoto
Brian MillsAttachments:
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!
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.
Significantly easier to see this evening.
Approx 5 deg long tail.
Easy naked eye target tonight.
Fab in my 2×54 binosAttachments:
0.5 sec exposure with the iPhone this evening from Paxos island, Greece.
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Meanwhile BBC has shared a timelapse with the comet circled in case of any doubt!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c4gl3xlwypjoOh 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
RobinNice movie on the SOHO web site showing the crossing of the comet’s orbital plane and development of the ‘anti-tail’…
Mike.
The motion of the comet is quite apparent each evening.
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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.
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