You can use binoculars or a telescope for an even better view. Its brightness will peak over the weekend and into Monday’s sunrise, rivaling that of the North Star. Reddy, the best time to catch Comet Nishimura is over the coming mornings. Reddy said, where clear desert skies make viewing excellent for most of the year - except for the late summer monsoon season, around the same time Comet Nishimura is reaching its peak brightness. That might be because many professionally managed telescopes are based in the Southwest, Dr. That’s exactly how scientists discovered Comet NEOWISE in 2020, which was named for the NASA space telescope that detected it, the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.īut when astronomers dug through past data, they found observations that included Comet Nishimura but which, for some reason, had not set off their automated systems. Reddy said, because most comets are detected by automated surveys conducted by professionally run observatories on Earth and in space. “The era of some random individual finding comets is thought to be long gone,” Dr.
Vishnu Reddy, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona who received the alert, was surprised that an amateur observer had found it. He reported the sighting to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, which alerted astronomers around the world. 12 while imaging the sky before sunrise with a digital camera - the third comet he has discovered. And you may have an opportunity to see it as well during the next few nights. The ball of dust and ice is formally named C/2023 P1, but is also called Comet Nishimura, for Hideo Nishimura, the Japanese photographer who first spotted it. Astronomy aficionados are buzzing about a bright new comet.
0 kommentar(er)
