Expected for months, comet Tsuchishan-Atlas finally becomes visible to the naked eye in the evening sky. During the weekend of October 12-13, 2024, it gradually emerged from the glow of dusk. Its brightness allows you to spot it with binoculars in a still clear twilight, at the time when the first stars light up in the sky.
As night falls, it gets closer to the horizon, but the darkening of the sky allows it to be distinguished with the naked eye. His dust tail becomes evident a little later. With binoculars, the spectacle is grandiose with a very bright golden core and a tail even more obvious than with the naked eye. It crosses the entire field of binoculars.
A 10° tail
This photo from October 13, 2024 was taken with an 85mm lens at the edge of the Baye pond in Morvan. The comet’s tail extends 8 to 9°. But it is completed in the opposite direction by a weaker arch, a few degrees long. We therefore have an object in the sky approximately 10° wide in total, despite the presence of the gibbous Moon and the last light of twilight.
Available on our web store and on newsstands (where to find it?)
On one of Sky & space 597 : The Great Red Spot reveals its secrets
Ten degrees is roughly the size of your fist held at arm’s length. Under a good sky, the interest in visual observation can easily be compared to the comet Neowise seen in 2020. Its magnitude of 2.5 is also close to that of Neowise, when it was visible under a dark sky. We cannot therefore qualify Tsuchinshan-Atlas as the comet of the century, but it remains an exceptional comet such as we see every 5 to 10 years on average in a given hemisphere.
Enjoy this week!
With each passing day, the comet’s brightness diminishes, but it is visible higher and higher in the sky. Better, on the weekend of October 19-20, it will be visible in a moonless sky at the start of the night around magnitude 4 to 4.5. It will then be more ghostly to the naked eye, but still interesting with binoculars. And above all, the window of dark sky will offer an opportunity for astrophotographers to reveal the extent of its tail, and why not detect the gas tail, which we do not see in this photo from the 13th.
To prepare your observations, consult our article dedicated to the comet.
In the coming days, the tail should lengthen, while the antiqueue will gradually weaken, fading almost completely after the 18th. To better understand the evolution of the comet, refer to the excellent simulations produced by astrophotographer Nicolas Lefaudeux.
More information on comets in our special issue Comets
Available on our web store
Related News :