21:00 – 02:30
I had seen a photo about a comet that had brightened and since tonight was the first clear night in a few weeks, it was a Friday and I was free, I thought I would venture out. The comet was C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and was very low, around +6.8 degrees altitude in the North at sunset, dipping down to +3.0 degrees around 1:30am and then starting to rise again.
I asked on the BASEG WhatsApp group where people would go locally with a good horizon and JBS (John Barrie-Smith) came back and said, come on over to my place at Lasham Gliding Club and see the comet from there. A flurry of messages and Lawrence, Gingergeek, Shane, Bob and I were now on for a night out!
We arrived about 9:20pm and all gathered at the gate to the airfield, we then followed John in convey around the airfield to the observing site for the night on one of the airfield pads. We then proceeded to setup and see if we could see the comet above the trees…..
To our surprise the trees looked high but due to the distance the comet was high above them. What follows are a selection of images from the nights observing, taken by myself (Dave Shave-Wall) unless otherwise stated. The comet can be seen in most of them.
