Mirador Astir Lasham, 10th July 2020

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE – Esprit 120

21:00 – 02:30

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Comet-C2020-F3-Neowise-50mm-Lens-6D-IMG_1126-1024x683.jpg
Faint Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE as the sun sets at Lasham

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.

Bob and Lawrence observing
Bob observing
Selection of equipment and cars
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE
My Esprit 120ED on Paramount MyT imaging comet almost horizontal
Glider with Milkyway just to left
Jupiter
Glider and Milkyway
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE by Gingergeek – 10s Exp no calibration FSQ85 & Atik460
Lawrence observing
Gingergeek imaging
Gingergeek imaging
Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and Noctilucent Clouds by John Barrie-Smith