On October 25th, the sky was unexpectedly clear, giving me an opportunity to once again feast my eyes on Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsushinchan ATLAS). I quickly set up my 15×70 binoculars and my 8-inch dob telescope with a 32 mm eyepiece. The comet looked beautiful through the binoculars, its tail filling and going beyond my immediate field of view.
Deciding how to capture this comet
Looking at it through the telescope was a bit muted. The coma looked flatter in its whiteness. The view didn’t grab me, even though I had prepared a circle to draw its coma in detail. But the comet had moved further away since my first encounter on October 16th.
Both the binocular and telescope views were missing that yellow colour I observed on October 16th. I am still not sure what the yellow colour indicated. Perhaps a particular gas or maybe its position at the time in relation to sunlight? Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE also had a distinct yellow colour streaming in its tail even to the naked eye. I moved between the scope and the binoculars for a while before deciding what approach to use to place this icy wonder on paper.
Decision made
I stood for ages looking at the night sky before me. The more I looked, the more I saw. My decision was made when I realised that I could see the comet naked eye. In the drawing the comet’s faint tail streams up towards a brightish star (Cebalrai) in a triangle of stars. The comet was in Ophiuchus at the time. The deal breaker was the Milky Way, which appeared so visually close and clear. My pre-drawn white circle was intended to draw my observation of the head of the comet. However, the comet’s position and presentation to my eye were so impressive it got to me.
The telescope and binoculars were ignored, and I drew what I could see in my circle. My hope then was to have one or two clear nights and perhaps include the comet again in this drawing before it was no longer naked eye. That would have shown its movement over time on its journey towards Aquilla. Alas, there have been no clear nights since then, disappointingly only clouds and fog. The comet is still visible in binoculars and telescopes during November. It’s at +6, fading fast as it travels towards the outer solar system. Perhaps never to be seen again by human eyes.
The Bortle 2 sky here can be genuinely magnificent at times. It always gives me a vivid sense of being on a planet moving in space, and I cherish these special dark sky moments deeply.
