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| Comet C/2023 A3 (cafuego. Wikimedia Commons) |
Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has been visible in the evening for me for the past week or so. It's in the west for an hour or so after it gets dark. It's visible to the naked eye as a faint white streak, but much easier to see and and a more interesting sight with binoculars. The comet is getting less problematic to catch in some ways: it's further from the sun and higher in the sky, and the moon is rising later and waning, so the sky is darker for comet-viewing. But, the comet is definitely starting to fade and get smaller, at the same time. At it's best it was quite a nice comet, but still not nearly as bright and obvious as Hale-Bopp in 1997.
Update: as of October 26, I can still find the comet with binoculars, but it's getting small and dim. I can't see it at all without binoculars, even knowing exactly where to look.
It's been a big month for astronomical happenings in New England, with the aurora borealis also making a rare appearance on a couple of nights. I caught them as kind of a diffuse pink glow in the sky. You can apparently see more structure with a camera with a good long-exposure astrophotograpy mode.
