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Ephemeris: 08/22/2023 – We might see a naked eye comet next month

August 22, 2023 Comments off

Aug 22. This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, August 22nd. The Sun will be up for 13 hours and 44 minutes today, setting at 8:37, and it will rise at 6:54 tomorrow. The Moon, 2 days before first quarter, will set at 11:09 this evening.

A new comet has been discovered that might be visible to the naked eye in early September. It was discovered 10 days ago by Hideo Nishimura of Kakegawa, Japan. Somehow he was able to scoop all the automated asteroid seeking discovery programs. The comet will be visible in the morning before sunrise in the northeastern sky. It will be probably be naked eye from the 7th to the 10th. That’s only about four days in September. At that point it may get up to about fourth magnitude which is not very bright, especially for a comet, it’s barely visible, since comets appear dimmer than their magnitude suggests. However, it will be far enough from the Sun at the beginning of the four-day period to be able to be viewed before astronomical twilight.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT –4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The comet Nishimura may reach naked eye visibility in September. It will be best viewed in binoculars. The tails shown point to the position of the tail, if present, and not its brightness or length. The brightness of the comet may not be accurate. The brightness of comets is rather unpredictable. These are based on only a few days observation, averaging the results of multiple observers. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Most of the data for this posting comes from Seiichi Yoshida’s Weekly Information about Bright Comets webpage (www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html).

Categories: Comet, Ephemeris Program, Observing Tags: , ,