You may have seen blurry pictures of stars popping up on social media over the past few weeks, I know I have, well it seems people have been out spotting a comet, Neowise. Not wanting to miss out, I decided to find out what this comet business was all about.
During July, comet Neowise is closer to Earth than it has been in the past 6000 years – how amazing is that! The 22nd and 23rd July are when it’s meant to be at its most visible in the Northern Hemisphere before it’s gone for another 6000 years, so we had to go looking for it.
I wasn’t totally sure of where to look so I downloaded an app called SkySafari, where I could put in the comet (warning – it’s official name is “C/2020 F3 Neowise” – there are a few different ones), and use my phones compass feature to see where I should be looking.
Unfortunately, my phone sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase, and I was wandering around my neighbourhood looking at the sky in the complete wrong direction. I saw on the map it was close by the moon, which was actually behind me, so we decided to ditch the technology and look ourselves.
I was a little unsure what to look for, but once we started looking at the sky we found a bright white circle, bigger and brighter than any star: it had to be the comet. Not quite trusting it, we set up the DSLR camera with the telephoto lens to see if we could snap it, and…
There it is!!
This was so amazing, literally a once in a lifetime new thing. I’m going to go out again tonight and see if I can see it before it’s gone.
Please let me know if you find it tonight, remember it’s your last chance!
New Day, New Thing 