Another Try

I've been reading in the news, the last little while, about a comet from the outer reaches of our solar system that is making the rounds around our sun right now.  So far out it would take it 80,000 years to make the trip.  That's a long ways.  It was discovered last January and the guy who discovered it was able to have it named after him, a guy named Greg Leonard.  Its technical name is C/2021 A1 but its short name is the Leonard Comet. It is the biggest, brightest comet of the year and, because it is supposed to be visible right now, sometimes gets called the Christmas comet.  When I first started reading of it I got the impression that it would be bright enough to be visible with the unaided eye, but, as part of an attempt to see it, saw that there have been no reports so far of anyone seeing it without some kind of magnification.  Although binoculars have been enough for a lot of people.

But it was worth a try.  So tonight we went out north of town, which is relatively free of light pollution, and gave it a shot.  The time it's visible, in our area, is short; it has to be dark enough for it to show up but before it dips below the horizon. While we never saw the comet, we got to watch a very nice sunset.  This is Venus, in the southwest sky.  The comet was supposed to be slightly below and to the left a little of Venus.  It felt a little bit like when I was trying to catch a glimpse of the Humanity Star a few years ago.  

Maybe we just didn't stay out long enough. After all, it should be visible up until just before Venus slips below the horizon. Maybe we'll try again in a couple of days and stay out until Venus goes out of sight.  Still, it was a fun evening, a nice time with Brombeere, out in the dark countryside, watching the sun set.  The comet is supposed to be visible for the rest of the year as it makes its way toward the sun.  It is not expected to survive the trip around the sun so it may or may not be back in a few months.  It's already getting dimmer and some experts think that may be because it's already starting to break up. In any case, it's expected to get ejected form its orbit around our sun and get hurled out of the solar system, never to return, if it survives that long.  But it's getting lots of attention right now.