Success!

Comet Tsuchianshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) traveling about 117,000 mph as seen from the entrance to Starved Rock State Park on October 16, 2024.

We finally saw the comet!

We knew the best time to see it would be about an hour after sunset, around 7:30, so we made a plan. We had a place nearby in the park we wanted to try. We got there, and sure enough, a tree was in our way. We found a spot between the trees where the comet should be, at least according to a celestial body finder app I use call GoSkyWatch. We couldn’t see anything. I was concerned the sky wasn’t dark enough and the comet too faint. The full moon made walking around easy, but it wasn’t helping us see the comet.

We decided to find a place with a better view of the night sky. Back in the car, LeeAnn thought she saw it. I was hoping she was right, but it was Venus. We found across the street from the park entrance is a cornfield, or, as we saw it, the best view of the western sky we’d get. We stared hard where it should be. Nothing. We waited a bit, hoping our eyes would adjust, but nothing.

In a Hail Mary, I got out my camera with by longest, fastest lens to see if I could get anything with it. I found it! It took a few attempts, but there it was on the viewing screen. With that success, I set my camera up on a tripod to get the best shots I could. Meanwhile, LeeAnn got out the binoculars now that we knew exactly where it was. She found it and could see it through the binoculars. After a we both took turns on them, we could ever so slightly see it with the naked eye, but only after knowing exactly what we were looking for.

We were elated. It was amazing to see something so rare and fleeting, an object that only comes around every 80,000 years. Last time it was in our sky, Neandertals were still around. I wonder if they noticed anything different. Did early modern humans? I bet they did.

A wider shot from the same spot, the comet can be seen in the upper right corner.