Sunday, May 03, 2020
Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN Unaided Eye Bright
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| Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN as seen looking east from Adelaide at 5:28 ACST (90 minutes before sunrise) on Monday the 4th of May. Beta Ceti (Deneb Kaitos/Diphida) is shown. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes before sunrise | Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN as seen looking east from Adelaide at 5:31 ACST (90 minutes before sunrise) on Friday the 8th of May. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes before sunrise |
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| Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN as seen looking east from Adelaide at 6:05 ACST (60 minutes before sunrise) on Friday the 16th of May. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 60 minutes before sunrise | Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN as seen looking east from Adelaide at 6:37 ACST (30 minutes before sunrise) on Saturday the 16th of May. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 30 minutes before sunrise |
Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN is unexpectedly bright, Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN is currently magnitude 5 (just visible to the unaided eye) under dark sky conditions, and may reach magnitude 2.9 at its brightest (which unfortunately is lost in the twilight).
Currently in the constellation Cetus it will move rapidly into Pisces heading towards the horizon. It is brightening but is heading into the twilight from mid May. It may peak at magnitude 2.9 on 23 May but from Australia it is lost in the twilight.
Use with a red-light torch (or a standard torch with red cellophane over it) so as to not disturb your night vision.
Because the comet is a fuzzy dot it will be a bit harder to spot the equivalent brightness stars. Allow at least 5 minutes for your eyes to become dark adapted.
Unfortunately there are no prominent guide stars to help find it, but it remains within around two binocular fields of Deneb Kaitos/ Diphia (Beta Ceti) for several nights.
The comet is also within a binocular field of dimmer Iota Ceti (about a hand-span north of Beta ceti) between the 4th-6th (and is almost on top of Iota Ceti on the 5th) thereafter it is in a field devoid of good spotter stars until it passes between faint delta and epsilon Pisces on the 10th.
Use with a red-light torch (or a standard torch with red cellophane over it) so as to not disturb your night vision.
MPEC one line ephemeris suitable for adding to astronomy programs such as Stellarium
CK20F080 2020 05 27.3578 0.431538 1.011489 67.6825 260.0610 110.9672 20200531 10.0 4.0 C/2020 F8 (SWAN)
Labels: C/2020 F8, comet, unaided eye
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 10:29 am 
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