Comet Tsuchinshon-ATLAS

[glend]

https://youtu.be/qfCx2eqaNzM?si=tgvQmj4ViKPNdw1b

Once in a Lifetime comet from the Ort Cloud.

[csastro25]

Hi all:hi:

I think this comet is only visable in the Northern Hemisphere, but i only hope it is visable for us in the southern. Will make a spectacular event,:eyepop: i certainly will be eagerly to photography this one through my telescope for sure.:thumbsup:

thanks glen for the info on this:thanx:

claude:D

[OzEclipse]

It’s observing geometry is difficult but better for us than the northern hemisphere where it is nearly impossible. We have a dawn window late September and early October and a dusk window around October 20.

The once in a lifetime nonsense is typical media beat up. The comet is potentially bring but not as bright as half a dozen comets of the past few decades.

Joe

[refractordude]

Hello There


I could not find it on Stellarium. The WWW info is vage. I am on the east coast USA.

[glend]

It's not on my version of Stellarium either.

[joshman]

To get it in Stellarium, you'll need to download/update the latest SSO databases. I've done it on all my PC's.


I grabbed some quick exposures of the Comet earlier this month.

[OzEclipse]

I use Starry Night Pro. When the comet was discovered, I downloaded the besselian elements from the Harvard server and created my own comet orbit in Starry Night.

I also use Sky Safari. It’s in there.

I don’t use Stellarium.

Joe.

[glend]

I have been checking Sky Safari for the best views from my location. For my observatory, it's the early morning easterly aspect prior to sunrise the last week of September. I am blocked to the lower elevations to the west, so I need to image it prior to sunrise.

[glend]

Playing around with different latitudes, it looks like any Queensland location with a good easterly aspect will be ideal around the morning of the 24th of September. Prior to sunrise the comet will be at 20 degrees above the horizon almost due east. My son's location in Dysart will be great, nice and dark and flat to the east. Importantly usually cloud free. If I had to pick one ideal spot for imaging it would be in an ocean facing unit in a Gold Coast high rise, but it would need to be a perfectly clear morning, which is unusual. It's a fairly bright comet, should be a good show.

[Anth10]

I was able to import the comet location in Stellarium- accurate location achieved for shooting this image in June.
Looking forward to this in the hope it lives up to the hype!
Anth.

[glenc]

This Guide map is looking east at 4:30 am on 20/9 from Tweed Heads, NSW.

[Rob_K]

C/2023 A3 is quite gettable now if you've got clear skies and flat horizons. Terry Lovejoy recovered it on the morning of the 12th (11th UT). I've imaged it yesterday and today from Hay NSW (14 & 15 Sept). I've attached a couple of images including a full-frame at 200mm. Note that the dates on the images are UT, not local time. I tried visually through binoculars this morning but the sky was too bright and I couldn't see the comet or any nearby stars. Also note that the Moon will start interfering soon.

Cheers -

[OzEclipse]

Tried without success to observe it this morning at 440-450am with 15x70mm binoculars.

Joe

[joshman]

I had a go at observing it this morning with 10x50mm binoculars from ~4:50 - 5:15am. Didn't see it, but I'll keep trying, I'll get it eventually.

[OzEclipse]

I worked out my problem. I was looking in the wrong place. :shrug:
:lol::rofl::lol:

I originally set up the comet orbit in my Starry Night program, early last year just after discovery, by entering those first derived Besselian Orbital elements. I checked the Besselian elements today. The elements have been refined and updated at the Harvard minor planet centre and mine were now different enough that the old elements are showing the comet at the wrong position. I'll get it next time. So it wasn't in the expected position with respect to the field stars. When the Moon relents a bit.

I realised when I saw a photo online taken at the same time I was observing and the comet appeared to be in the wrong place relative to the field stars.

cheers

Joe

[joshman]

Haha, I've definitely been there. I was a little worried that my week old orbital information in Stellarium was out of date already when I couldn't find it yesterday morning.


As it would turn out. its just really faint, and my horizon is murky.


I manage to spot it this morning (~4:55am) from my backyard through my 10x50 binoculars. Now that i knew exactly where is was, I caught the briefest of glimpses with the naked eye.
My Horizon was too murky to make out much of the tail, but the nucleus was a tiny pinpoint of light with a diffuse shell.

[joshman]

Another successful visual observation with the binoculars this morning. Its nice that it's getting here earlier and earlier in the morning. I'm going to setup to try and catch some images tomorrow morning.


Looking through it's positional information for the next few weeks, it looks like my best pre-dawn observation will be around the 26-28th of September, when it's highest, earliest.


However, the long term weather forecast currently disagrees.

[glend]

So glad that folks are able to see it visually.

[Anth10]

Best of luck Josh!
Fingers crossed 🤞

[N1]

Picked it up in 7x50s around 5:25am NZT this morning after it cleared my local horizon and clutter at around 7° of altitude. Very conspicuous, so expecting a longer session decided to bring out the 8" f/6 Dob with a 28mm eyepiece in it. Power 43x, exit pupil 4.7mm. The Dob has an 8x50 RACI:

Compact object, bright coma, obvious tail in all optics.

5:40 - tail lost in finder*
5:46 - whole object no longer visible in finder but still very obvious in main EP, Sun alt. -8°
5:55 - tail lost in main EP*
6:08 - whole object no longer visible in main EP, Sun alt. -4.5°
6:29 - Sunrise
(times are approximate)

*meaning any hint of a tail

This may well become a daytime comet.

[joshman]

A fantastic Report!


I stepped outside with 10x50 binoculars at ~4:40am and very easily picked it out (now that I knew exactly where to expect it/look)


Like you say, tight, bright core, very obvious tail. looks much brighter than previous mornings, tail much easier to discern.


I had set up both rigs last night to try and image it this morning.

Once I'd adjusted my imaging methodology, I managed to get at least 10 minutes with each setup, both running at ~1.46"/px scale.


I'll setup the 127Mak as well for visual observation tomorrow morning

[joshman]

Lot's of technical issues in the processing. I'm glad I had both rigs setup to image this; I can't get my OSC data to register, and I could only get about half my Luminance data to register.



After all that, I've ended up with...


6 minutes of Luminance.


See it bigger, here on Astrobin.

https://astrob.in/91i1ud/0/


I've got a bit of a plan for tomorrow morning to hopefully get a better image.


But we'll see.

[Dave882]

That’s a mighty fine shot Josh

[Anth10]

Very promising result Josh!
Excited to see what comes of this.

[OzEclipse]

Nice shot Josh. Well done.

Can't you manually align your OSC images or is it one of these 600 x 1s captures?

Joe

[joshman]

I had much better success this morning, I slewed to the comet much earlier and captured it rising through the trees. I've done a preliminary stack of the images from both camera, and it's looking much more promising than yesterday efforts. I still need to tweak a few settings and restack, but it looks promising.



I put together short animation of it rising behind my trees this morning:
https://www.astrobin.com/lczk1v/0/

In some of the first subs i took this morning (not in video) I could see the tail extending out of frame, given my FOV with this setp is ~1.5 degrees on the long side, i would put the tail at being at least that long.

[Garyh]

Good work Josh, boy that comet is flying.! Time for some tree pruning!
Was able to see the comet in my 8x42 binos, tail maybe 1/2° or so long, around 4.45.Faint but there.
Managed like 5min with my 200mm lens.tail might be getting closer to 2° on exposures.

[glenc]

I looked at Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS with a 10" reflector on 2024 Sep 21.77 UT (4:30 am AEST 22/9) from Terranora, NSW, Australia (lat -28.24). The tail was 50' long. The comet was also visible in the 50mm finder scope at an altitude of 5.4 deg.

[JimmyAstro]

Hi Everyone,

Very excited!!!! :party:

My husband and I have just seen our first comet ever (Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), from the morning sunlit/sunrise (east) skies of southern Adelaide.

We managed to get our first glimpse around 5am (I think it was around 10 deg or so in the sky), there were a lot of trees and other things in the way. We had been up waiting since 4am. It was pretty much totally washed out by around 5:15am or so.

No computers, no telescopes, no apps, it was just our binoculars (10x50) and a compass.

Whilst really excited and happy, I was also a little surprised by the object and was hoping for a little more. I guess the conditions are just not right for us at the moment!

I am just glad the skies were fairly clear and the rain and cloud had gone, hopefully it will be the same tomorrow.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I am going to attempt to take a photo. Especially now I know exactly where to find.

Happy comet hunting everyone and clear skies for all.

Helen & James

[JimmyAstro]

Hi IIS Fam,

Well Murphy's law, it was clouded over this morning and no chance for any image on the eastern horizon of Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS.

So we didn't waste the time and started some imaging on M42 (Orion Nebula), and we captured our second ever DSO/Nebula image. It was only about 7 minutes of data, we are hoping to post something later today.

However, just about when we thought all hope was lost for everything comet related and as we were about to pack-up, it was about 5:13am (ACST) when the clouds started to part and clear in my Adelaide southern suburbs spot. We quickly scrambled and whilst no photo, we did manage to get in some binocular (10x50) observing for about five minutes before we lost it and the horizon became too bright.

We were thankful for another opportunity to see it with our eyes, we will keep trying for that elusive photo!

Maybe we will get a better opportunity next month :shrug:.

Regards

James & Helen

[anj026]

Yesterday morning I had a great view of the comet using 10x50 binoculars from the suburbs of Perth. This morning I was ready with 12x50 binoculars and a TV60 with 18.2mm Delite (20x).

Yesterday I tried seeing it naked eye but it was very difficult. This morning I definitely saw it naked eye but only for a couple of minutes. It was an easy binocular object between 0500 and 0515. It would have been visible earlier but my eastern horizon is somewhat blocked by trees and house roofs.

Andy

[JimmyAstro]

No comet this morning for us!

Totally clouded out and looks like rain this morning. :cloudy:

It really doesn't like it's photo taken!

Helen & James

[EpickCrom]

Got up at 4:50am to try and catch a glimpse of Tsuchinshan ATLAS armed with my 10x50mm binoculars. Oh wow! There was no need to bring the binoculars as I immediately saw it naked eye! Condensed white core with long pinkish tail. I muttered some choice expletives and dragged out the missus to have a look as well.

Stunning through the 10x50's. This is the brightest Comet I've seen in my 5 years of serious observing, well worth getting up early for :eyepop:

[anj026]

I was up early again too. Another good view. I had the low powered small refractor out but I think I prefer the 10x50 view. Rain forecast tomorrow.

Andy

[joshman]

Got up early enough to watch it rise over the neighbourhood trees. tail was bright enough to make out in the 10x50 bino's before the core rose.
Core is significantly brighter than this time last week, comet is easily naked eye, and fairly long tail with averted vision.

[JimmyAstro]

Hi IIS Fam,

Up this morning since around 4am (Helen stayed in bed!) and all was looking good and clear, whilst waiting for Tsuchinshan ATLAS I thought I would get a little more data on M42 (Orion), also had a short and first attempt on IC 2118 (Witches Head).

As usual I didn't manage to see Tsuchinshan ATLAS until around 9 degrees (about 5:08am), due to terrain, trees and roof's in my area. I managed one very quick glimpse for a matter of seconds with my eye, other than that it was bino viewing only. Was only visible for a few minutes before fading into the sunrise.

I think I have resided myself to the fact that I probably not going to get a photo of the comet from our home location. Will have to wait and see what later in the month opportunities hold.

James & Helen