As Comet Tsuchinsan-Atlas [C/2023 A3] first became visible in the northern hemisphere under a full moon, on 10/15/24 I drove out to Utah to try and ensure clear skies for what would be our first decent view of it. As dusk turned to night the tail became visible and was revealed to nearly touch the edge of the Milky Way to the south! The anti-tail was clearly visible, an unusual visual treat for comet-watchers across the globe. The ‘ant-tail’ is only visible because the angle at which the earth is viewing the comet is almost perfectly in-plane; the small line of anti tail is the far end of the tail behind, which has wrapped around and become visible behind/underneath the coma.
Even under a full moon the tail was quite impressive, but I only had about 10 minutes with it before a rogue cloud layer quickly became visible and expertly swamped my view of it, even obscuring the small slice of sky beneath the cloud deck just as the coma would have poked through, briefly, before dipping below the horizon. Some nights just don’t work out the way I gamble they might.
[YT video of Comet/clouds]
Those clouds were the leading edge of a weather system that I’d have to return home for, as the forecast didn’t indicate much clearing for the following 4-5 days, and this night ended up being almost completely cloudy for the duration.
Oh well.
