The Comet!

A newly discovered comet is racing through space, from far out beyond the solar system.  It seemingly came from nowhere and raced toward the sun, around the sun and is now on its way back out to the far reaches.  It takes 6,800 years to complete its orbit!  In contrast, Halley's comet is a short period comet that reappears every 76 years. But for about two weeks NEOWISE is visible to those of us on Earth as it races by us.  It is officially called C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, and it was discovered by a space telescope.  Amateur astronomers have been waiting for clear weather to get a chance to see it.  Early Sunday morning it was forecast to be clear, so I set my alarm for 2:45 AM, got up and headed to Stehli Beach in Bayville which is north of us.   The comet is very faint - it took me about 5 minutes to see it even though I know where it was in the sky.  So I used my 300mm lens for the photograph above.  As you can see, it is a beautiful comet with a long tail.  The comet rises about two and one-half hours before the sun, and then after about 45 minutes or so, the first light of dawn obscures the tail and we can no longer see it.  Below is a wide-angle photograph of the comet at seen above the horizon of Long Island Sound, taken about 40 minutes after the above photo.  Seeing a comet like this is just magical!