In the hours after midnight, there is the best chance to see the comet NEOWISE.
You can now have an extra experience when the sun goes down and the darkness falls.
If you look north, you will see a comet light up dimly in the evening and night sky.
It is the comet NEOWISE that can now be seen in the hours after sunset and until the end of the night.
In recent days, despite the unstable Danish summer weather, several places in the country have been able to enjoy the sight of the comet, which will continue to be found in the sky in the coming week’s time – and maybe even for the rest of July.
Consists of ice and dust
NEOWISE is a new comet and was discovered March 27 this year by the NASA space telescope Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), which has also named the comet.
The comet moves in an elongated elliptical orbit around the Sun as it passed on July 3, and since then the Earth has seen the five-kilometer comet of ice and dust.
The solar wind throws the comet’s ice and dust into a tail away from the comet, and this is what you can see when the comet’s dusty tail is illuminated by the sun.
Best seen after midnight
While NEOWISE is moving away from the Sun again, it will be visible from late evening.
– For the time being, the comet is seen very low in the northern direction around midnight, and because of the light nights I would recommend looking at the sky from midnight and an hour ahead, when it is darkest, explains Michael Linden-Vørnle, astrophysicist at DTU Space, and that night to Friday itself has been on a comet hunt.
Seeing the comet requires you to get used to the darkness, and you can also get good help from an ordinary binoculars.
– I could not see it with the naked eye, but it is obviously because it was sitting right in the middle of an area with luminous night clouds. In a plain binoculars, it was very clear as a woolly, yellow star with a small, weak and broad tail pointing up and slightly to the right. I also saw the comet in my 63 millimeter lens binoculars, where it was very nice, says Michael Linden-Vørnle.
– But if you expect to go outside and immediately see an impressive comet a la Hale-Bopp, you will be very disappointed.
