10-17-2024, 05:05 AM (This post was last modified: 10-17-2024, 05:35 AM by TomK.)
A live stream from Mauna Kea shows the naked-eye comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS setting to the west of Hawaii. It should remain visible through this month, but it won't be up for much longer tonight.
It's moving northwards, so over the next few days, it will actually get higher in the sky each evening. However, that also means it's moving away from the sun, so it will get fainter—swings and roundabouts.
Current predictions are that the comet will continue to fade and won't be easily visible by the end of the month. While there's always a chance we see an outburst that brightens it up, the chances are slim.
You have the Galactic center on the left, a very bright Venus just above the horizon, and the comet. Unfortunately, the webcam image is not sensitive enough to see the anti-tail, which in a 2-D image like this would point almost directly downward from the comet's nucleus and indicate the comet's motion.
PS. For orientation in the attached picture, I believe the light from the ground comes from Kailua-Kona (directly below Venus), Waimea (far right), and Waikoloa Village between Kailua and Waimea.
10-28-2024, 08:37 AM (This post was last modified: 10-29-2024, 07:10 AM by TomK.)
A relatively short but excellent video demonstrates the comet's movement from night to night and shows the difference not having a bright moon in the sky makes. One might think, naively, that the comet's trail indicates the direction it's moving, but this isn't the case. It shows the direction of the solar wind. There is an anti-tail, which I couldn't see for certain in this collection, that does trail the comet, but it is made up of fewer larger dust and ice particles that aren't affected by the solar wind compared to the ions streaming of the comet, which create the bright trail.
PS. Looking back at the video, the anti-tail might be briefly visible at the 02:36 mark and possibly again at 02:56 (look right below the comet). The video is noisier because the ISO/gain has been turned up, so there's no way I'd claim this is real, but it's where you'd expect the anti-tail to be. Watch the video at half or quarter speed at those times, and you might see what I do. Incidentally, you can also see Venus' motion throughout the whole video.
