Stargazing Spotting Comet NEOWISE with Naked Eyes: A Spectacular Visual Experience!

[OmCheeto]

If it's at mag 7, then it's already beyond naked eye seeing.
Generally Mag 6 is about as dim as humans can see.

Maybe. Maybe not.

According to the people at the Comet Observation database (COBS) website, the magnitude is currently around 3.5.

3.5 is well within unaided visual range.

But...
I also ran across this:

Objects that are points of light such as stars or planets work well with the visual magnitude scale. However, large or diffuse objects can sometimes distort how bright the object actually ‘looks’ compared to its designated magnitude value.

This is especially true for large, face-on spiral galaxies such as the Triangulum Galaxy (m33), which has a magnitude of 5.73. This galaxy is exceptionally hard to see with the naked eye despite being well within the naked eye limit of magnitude 6.5.

ref: Comet Watch
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disclaimer: I am not an astronomer, and therefore have no clue what I'm talking about.

 

[iVenky]

I saw this right at sunset to towards the north west portion (right side of sun set). I am not sure if it's a plane or the comet, but I could see it only briefly for 5 minutes and it was still. I couldn't see anything moving if it was a plane.

 

[Vanadium 50]

That's awfully bright. I would say "plane".

 

[DennisN]

Last night was perfect viewing; here's a preliminary stacked image of NEOWISE taken with at 105mm; both tails are visible. Each image: 3s @ 105/1.4 ISO between 64 and 800.

Gosh, that's such an amazing photo! I have trouble grasping how you were able to capture all those stars in the same photo. I.e. I thought the comet was too bright for that.

 

[gmax137]

That's awfully bright. I would say "plane".

plus the tail is pointing the wrong way, isn't it? last week it was "head down"

 

[sophiecentaur]

plus the tail is pointing the wrong way, isn't it? last week it was "head down"

It depends on the time of day. The test is if you can convince yourself that the tail is pointing away from the Sun.
I saw it a few weeks ago and it was very bright and low in the sky . No tail visible in the dying sun. I thought it was a very short con trail but it stayed the same for many minutes and light clouds moved by it. I took some photos of it for future reference and then saw the same image from someone else. So I knew it was right .The other day I saw it again but more like a classic comet. (Pointing in the Sun’s direction

 

[iVenky]

It depends on the time of day. The test is if you can convince yourself that the tail is pointing away from the Sun.
I saw it a few weeks ago and it was very bright and low in the sky . No tail visible in the dying sun. I thought it was a very short con trail but it stayed the same for many minutes and light clouds moved by it. I took some photos of it for future reference and then saw the same image from someone else. So I knew it was right .The other day I saw it again but more like a classic comet. (Pointing in the Sun’s direction

Exactly, that is what I found in my case too. It stayed the same for many minutes too and didn't look like a plane to me

 

[sophiecentaur]

last week it was "head down"

It's been in the sky for most of the day for highish latitudes and it (of course) rotates around North and is lower declination than the big dipper. Depending when you see it and where (Longitude) you view it from, the comet and the dipper can be 'above' or 'below' Polaris so the tail can be pointing in any direction relative to the horizon - in the general direction of 'away from Polaris'.
If you were in the same place and more or less the same time, you would expect the tail to point in a similar direction. But that image doesn't seem to show a tail so perhaps there was some other effect stretching the head. One poor image I got, showed a hint of 'dots'. Atmospheric?

 

[davenn]

It stayed the same for many minutes too

Only many minutes ? not 20 mins or 30 mins " ?

Seriously, it does not look like the comet or any comet
and as someone else said above, way too bright for a just after sunset sky like that

99.99% probability that is was an aircraft contrail being lit up bu the sun that was then over your horizon

Dave

 

[iVenky]

Only many minutes ? not 20 mins or 30 mins " ?

Seriously, it does not look like the comet or any comet
and as someone else said above, way too bright for a just after sunset sky like that

99.99% probability that is was an aircraft contrail being lit up bu the sun that was then over your horizon

Dave

so there's still a 0.01% probability that it was the comet?

 

[Andy Resnick]

Gosh, that's such an amazing photo! I have trouble grasping how you were able to capture all those stars in the same photo. I.e. I thought the comet was too bright for that.

I think of it as 'dynamic compression', similar to Dolby noise reduction methods, that happens when I start with a 32-bit stacked image and then compress it to 16-bit 3-channel image and finally an 8-bit/channel jpeg.

 

[davenn]

so there's still a 0.01% probability that it was the comet?

NO

 

[Andy Resnick]

the stacking program I use just added a 'comet stacking' patch, so I re-stacked the images used for post #19 to give this (scaled down 50%):

I think this version looks better.

 

[davenn]

Well, clouds near the horizon put the kibosh on seeing NEOWISE, but we did get treated to a spectacular 6 minute passage of the ISS at mag -2.7.

Too bad my camera's longest shutter speed is 15 seconds.

Here it is about to enter Ursa Major (click for full size):
View attachment 266562

I don't see a comet in that pic, just a plane/satellite

 

[sophiecentaur]

I don't see a comet in that pic, just a plane/satellite

Agreed. It is too uniform to be a 'tail' and the movement relative to the stars (trail) should be undiscernible.

the stacking program I use just added a 'comet stacking' patch,

That (terrific) image of Andy's shows the amount of relative motion; the stacking ignored the stars and froze the comet. What was the total time for the session? (I guess I should be able to work it out. )

 

[DaveC426913]

I don't see a comet in that pic, just a plane/satellite

Did you (and sophie) read my post?

 

[sophiecentaur]

Did you (and sophie) read my post?

Whoops. How embarrassing.

 

[davenn]

Did you (and sophie) read my post?

Yes, what did I miss ?

ohhh I mis-read hahahah ... old age and senility are my excuses

oops, sorry

 

[sophiecentaur]

Yes, what did I miss ?

He told us there was no comet!

I think it's time for our bedtime cocoa drink from the Matron.

 

[davenn]

He told us there was no comet!

I think it's time for our bedtime cocoa drink from the Matron.

read my post ;)

yeah we both missed the mark on that one haha

 

[Andy Resnick]

That (terrific) image of Andy's shows the amount of relative motion; the stacking ignored the stars and froze the comet. What was the total time for the session? (I guess I should be able to work it out. )

Thankls! Total integration time was about 500 seconds.

 

[sophiecentaur]

Thankls! Total integration time was about 500 seconds.

That far in eight minutes! Not hanging around then.