‘SEEING COMET IS WELL WORTH 2AM ALARM CALL’
Neowise is now in Potteries skies for first time in 6,800 years
NORTH Staffordshire photographers have captured a rare glimpse of a comet which is only visible once every 6,800 years.
Snappers have been sharing their incredible photos of C/2020 F3 – also known as Neowise – as it has flown across the skies above the Potteries over the last few nights.
The comet shot through the sky at a distance of 103 million kilometres away from Earth and should be visible again over Staffordshire for the next two weeks – providing the skies are clear.
By mid-july it will have moved into the constellation of Lynx and should be visible all night. And it’s set to reach its closest point to our planet on July 23, before plunging deeper into the solar system.
Neowise was only discovered by Nasa in March, and will come as close as 103 million km away.
It was located using the Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer – hence the name.
Stargazers should be able to see Neowise as soon as the sky gets dark enough, although the best time is just after sunset and just before sunrise.
The simplest way to see the comet in early to mid-july is to look east, for the Big Dipper – also known as the Plough or Ursa Major.
The comet will be to the right, and below the Plough – close to the horizon – from early to mid-july, then directly below it by July 25.
After that it will continue to move left across the sky each day.
Anyone having trouble spotting it should look for its tail of ice.
Gary Waterhouse was among those to get out of bed for the chance of catching the comet on camera.
He said: “It was well worth the 2am alarm call.”
Fellow photographer Jonathan Nicholls said: “The comet is now an awesome object visible to the naked eye and best observed late in the evening in the north-west, or in early pre-dawn at 3am, where it will appear in the north-east horizon.
“I urge your readers to go out after 11.30pm and look north-west for the comet which has visited our solar system and won’t be back for over 6,000 years.”
Nasa said: “As Comet Neowise became one of the few naked-eye comets of the 21st Century, word spread quickly, and the comet has already been photographed behind many famous sites and cities around the globe.”