Did you see the video of, what’s being dubbed as, the “Comet of the Century” over the Golden Gate bridge? I was pleasantly surprised to see the video but disappointed that I had no idea about it and figured, there might be others who haven’t heard about it either.
The comet is called C/2023 A3 or Tsuchinshan–ATLAS. Although the comet was just discovered last year, according to Earth.com, “scientists have determined that it visited our planet around 80,000 years ago.”1
If you haven’t guessed by the spectacular video, now is the time to see it before dawn. However, it will return very close to our planet again and will be visible after sunset this time. It appears that websites don’t agree on which is the best return date since I’ve seen a range between October 11 and October 13 but it appears that for those of us in North America, it’ll be best to see it beginning October 12.
The only thing is that the moon will be in its waxing gibbous phase with October’s full moon on October 17. None of the website mentioned that the moon could be an issue. Still, Wired.com did mention that “As October progresses, the comet will elevate its position in relation to the horizon and at the same time lose brightness.”2
Happy comet hunting!
Footnotes