Jamie Carter is an award-winning reporter and experienced stargazer who covers the night sky, astro-tourism, the northern lights and space exploration. He received the 2023 Popular Media Award from the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division and is the author of A Stargazing Program for Beginners. Writing for Forbes.
, may have mostly disintegrated as it got close to the sun on Monday, Oct. 28, but there’s another spooky-looking object in the night sky this Oct. 31 — if you know where to look.
With a New Moon on Friday, the night skies this week are dark and the come tis “up” for a lot longer than it was last week, making views of its coma and tail through binoculars and small telescopes impressive., any geomagnetic storms may have the Northern Lights visible after dark. What certainly will be visible —albeit from a dark sky destination — will be the Milky Way, which flows through the “Summer triangle” stars that the comet is currently cruising through.
Do you know where to look for the comet? See two sky charts below explaining two different techniques of locating comet A3.Now 91 million miles from Earth and shining at a magnitude of +4.1 in the constellation Ophiuchus, the comet is now getting fainter and smaller with each passing night.
Look above Venus for the bright star Vega in the constellation Lyra. Look halfway between Venus and Vega, and you should find the comet, though probably only if you use a pair of binoculars.Since Venus will sink soon after sunset — or you may have horizon clouds or mountains to contend with — you can also use the stars of the Summer Triangle, of which Vega is one. Find the other two that make up the famous asterism — Deneb in Cygnus, above Vega, and Altair in Aquila, to the left.
Now, make a rough triangle between Altair and Vega by pointing down to the horizon. The third point is roughly where the comet will be. You'll need binoculars to see it — as well as a dark, clear sky.It’s a long-period comet from the Oort Cloud, a sphere around the solar system that’s home to millions of comets. Astronomers think it loops around the sun once every 80,000 years. Its coma is about 130,000 miles in diameter, and its tail extends around 18 million miles into space.
C/2023 A3 Comet Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Halloween Comet Can The Comet Still Be Seen Comet Tracker Where To See Comet Comet Northern Lights Comet ATLAS (C/2024 S1)
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