Photo: Bob King, Duluth, Minnesota

Comet Neowise

For all the grief we’re attributing to the year 2020, what with Covid-19, murder wasps, the Bubonic Plague, disastrous unemployment, unprecedented losses of small businesses, and 16,000 other awful things I’m not recalling at the moment, there are a couple bright spots. One of them is C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), or more commonly known as Comet Neowise.

Yeah, this baby looks like what we all hoped and expected Halley’s Comet to look like when it finally showed up. From the photos I’ve seen, Neowise is spectacular in its split tail and brilliance. In many ways, the photos of it remind me of how, as a child, I imagined the Star of Bethlehem must have looked to the three wise men.

As I was searching for a unique photo of the comet to use for this post that’s not the same as the gorgeous ones I’ve seen on Facebook (over Glastonbury Tor, for instance), I came across the one above by Bob King in Duluth, Minnesota. Two things about this link: first of all, the photo is of the comet in the evening! That was just taken tonight.

I just love how Mr. King managed to capture the comet not only directly in the sky overhead but also exquisitely reflected in the lake below. What a wonderful shot!

Morning or Evening?

I’m pretty sure that most, if not all, of the photos that have been showing up so far have been taken in the wee hours of the morning of the particular locality. In fact, I think we should be able to see it one more time, at least, in the hour or two before sunrise – either ‘tonight’ (depending on when you go to sleep) or tomorrow.

By my calculations, at least if I use this article’s timing, I should be going to my prime viewing spot at around 3:51 a.m. Yeesh. That’s asking a lot, Mother Nature! (I arrived at that ‘start time’ be calculating an hour and 50 minutes before sunrise.)

Yes, I am usually awake until at least 2:00 a.m. every night (or morning, if you want to get technical about it). But staying up that extra two hours, while probably fairly easy for me to do by simply giving myself permission to binge-read my latest book, will almost certainly result in feeling as though I’m missing a half a beat most of the day tomorrow.

So I’m psyched to learn that there could very well be a fairly good opportunity to see Comet Neowise in the evening sky, about an hour after sunset, starting tomorrow. Heck – with it being so hot lately, we’ve been walking more in the early evening hours anyway, so this wouldn’t be a stretch for us at all.

Wonderfully Precise Instructions

But as great as the photo by Bob King is, it’s also accompanied by a wonderful article describing in great detail the best ways to locate the comet in the evening sky. I feel like the specificity in this article should give any of us who really want to see this comet (and are blessed with clear skies and an obstruction-free and somewhat light pollution-less view) a decent chance of success.

So here you go. If you’re into it, I hope you meet with success in witnessing this celestial phenomenon, which is only visible to us every 6,766 years or so.

On the off chance I wake up two hours before the crack of dawn’s early light (you know, three hours from now), I may give it a shot. More likely, though, I’m going to pin my hopes on an evening score.

As you know from my numerous posts about an assortment of meteor showers and even another comet or two, I love this stuff. And I miss my boys, who so very often were game to indulge their mother’s crazy excitement at witnessing celestial events that often sounded much better than they ended up being.

What’s In a Name?

But don’t you just love the name of this comet, too? Neowise? I know it’s named after the space telescope that discovered it on March 27th. March 27th! Of 2020! Nevertheless, it feels like the synchronicity of its name might just be an offering of the tiniest glimmer of hope for humanity: perhaps this comet will usher in an era of “new wisdom.”

Let’s hope.

(T-502)