Oberving Comet NEOWISE

12.07.2020

There are once in a lifetime events that no one should miss. Observing a bright comet is one of those rare things. This year we got the chance to witness a very bright and majestic comet: comet NEOWISE.

A comet is a icy body from the outer regions of the solar system. For the first billion years of their live they hover nearly motionless and frozen in space and time in the Oort cloud, a distant region in the outer border of our solar system. If they get disturbed, they „fall“ into the solar system – racing close towards the sun. When doing so they heat up and spill icy and dusty particles into the surrounding void. The resulting „atmosphere“ will shine bright in the sunlight – making heated comets a stunning object to observe. If the heat is too intense though, the comet will break apart and vanish into the void without any spectacular show. So the border is narrow: On the one hand the comet needs to get heated enough to create a significant atmosphere – on the other hand the heat needs to be so „gentle“ to leave our comet unbroken.

Comet NEOWISE was one of this comets. Bright enough to be seen with the naked eye – a bright inner core and a beautiful tail – it hovered over the horizon for several weeks. Many folks out there took amazing and stunning images. But EVERYONE with a smartphone or a compact camera was able to capture his OWN image of this comet – and that’s a great thing to do.

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I did a separate „encouraging“ video for everyone to get out and observe this amazing spectacle!

Let’s hope for the next comet!

Clear skies!
– Chris