www.ComingsBirds.com/2020

To the Beauty of Birds

Comet NEOWISE is a long period comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered on March 27, 2020, by astronomers during the NEOWISE mission of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope. At that time, it was an 18th-magnitude object, located 2 AU (300 million km; 190 million mi) away from the Sun and 1.7 AU (250 million km; 160 million mi) away from Earth.

NEOWISE is known for being the brightest comet in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997. It was widely photographed by professional and amateur observers and was even spotted by people living near city centers and areas with light pollution.

Well, not quite. I first became aware of the NEOWISE Comet when on July 11th, 2020, my son Scott sent me a photo he had taken in Oregon (see Scott’s NEOWISE photo). I was blown away. It was beautiful! That night Sally and I went to a beach in Newport Beach to get my own photograph. We knew what time and what direction to look but saw nothing. The next night we went to the Newport Beach Back Bay road. The view to the northwest, was across the bay with nothing in the way. We still did not see it. The next night we went to Monrovia were my home was, to photograph it. Nothing. The next night we went Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, also with a good view of the northwest sky. Still nothing. In addition, none of the many people at all these places saw anything.

The comet was supposed to be the brightest on July 25th. To increase our chances by getting away from the city lights at all the previous places, we went to Santiago Canyon in the Irvine Lake area. Finally, no city lights. There were about 10 other comet watchers there. None of use saw anything.

Scott told me exactly where to look. Find the ladle of the Big Dipper, go about 10 degrees to the left and 10 degrees down toward the horizon. Although none of us saw anything, I took several low magnification photos of the area so I could download it on my computer and search on my screen. This photo is labeled “lower left”. If you look very carefully you can barely see a blueish dot. This was enlarged in the photo “NEOWISE comet enlarged.” VOILA. A hazy blue “star.” I sent it to Scott, and he said – “that’s it.” The blueness of it surprised me, but remember, it is made of ice and ice is blue.

The reason it was so hard to see here is that the Comet was easier to see the further north you were. In Southern California it was barely visible and impossible to see when there were a lot of city lights.

NEOWISE comet

Scott's neowise photo.jpeg

Left lower.jpg

Neowise comet Enlarged.jpg