Comet Neowise seen in the wee hours of morning shortly before sunrise on July 12, 2020. The picture was taken from my second floor guest room window looking north east using a camera with a telephoto lens. This was my first "naked eye" comet and possibly the last in its class I would actually see in my lifetime. I had not been able to see the comparable Halley's comet when I was 10 years old, and don't expect to see it return when I'd be 86 either. Thanks to this cosmic visitor, I also unearthed an unexpected connection, from about 55 years ago.
2020 - One Neo
I started on the night of July 11, and had spent the greater part of an unhurried Saturday night photographing other deep sky objects. The plan was to shoot some Messiers, sleep with an alarm set for 4 am in time to catch Neowise. But it being one of those rare summer weekend nights with crystal clear skies, I continued shooting till about 2:30 a.m. capturing seven faint fuzzies in one night - my personal best (photographic) Messier marathon. By the time I was wrapping up, it was close to 3 a.m. Neowise was supposed to rise shortly after. I decided to stay up the next hour, so as to not miss the narrow opportunity window between it rising above horizon and morning sunlight washing it out from view.
From my backyard I tried looking for it where the phone app predicted it would be, but there was nothing. Venus was shining brightly like a steady airplane beacon low on the east and Capella was the next brightest object on the north-east. A few degrees to the left, there was supposed to be Neowise - but I saw nothing above the treeline by naked eye. Hoping to get a better elevation in case the trees were blocking my view, I went up to the second floor to the north-east facing windows. It took a quick scan of the region through binoculars - and clear as bell, the faint but unmistakable shape of the comet stood out from the mixture of amber street light and pre-dawn sky glow. Its tail pointing up and the bright head hanging just above the treeline...there was - my first "naked eye" comet. Eighty million miles from the earth, an eccentric visitor to our solar system after its orbit around our sun not slated to return in another 7000 years.
Neowise was a first in another way. It was named - not after a human who discovered it - but after an automated Nasa sky survey by the same name that looks for objects on close rendezvous with the earth. The Near Earth Object Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer had spotted this on 27th March, 2020.
1965 - Deja Vu
Almost half a century ago, 55 years to be precise, another naked eye comet had visited the earth. Two teenagers had observed it then from their home in Kolkata, India. They were my father and uncle, now both in their 70s.
Having heard snippets of that story before from my dad, I researched the event timeline and came up with the most likely candidate. A celebrated celestial visitor "Ikeya Seki" from 1965, named after its Japanese discoverers, an amateur and a professional astronomer, who independently discovered it.
One of the detailed personal accounts I found on the web was this piece by an author and lecturer on astronomy: 40 Years Ago: A Great Comet. According to this account, its tail seen from the earth at its longest was as big as the big dipper which spans 25 degrees. This, if true, meant it was fifty times the size of what I saw. (Neowise was a mere half degree in comparison).
As described in this piece:"...An incredibly brilliant, twisted tail stretched up from the east-southeast horizon an hour or two before the Sun, appearing like a slender searchlight beam, about as long as the length of the Big Dipper. So bright was this tail, that on Halloween morning, veteran New York comet observer, John Bortle was able to see it despite being enveloped in a heavy local ground fog. ... "
I wrote to my father sharing my finding. My nudge got both of them reminiscing:
হ্যাঁ, এত বড় — প্রায় পুরো আকাশ জুড়ে — বেশ আশ্চর্য করা দৃশ্য। ধূমকেতুটা নিয়ে আগে কিছু শুনিনি, কেবল হ্যালির ধূমকেতুর কথা পড়েছিলাম।
হ্যালির ছাড়া অন্য ধূমকেতুও যে এত বড় হতে পারে কেউ বলেনি।"
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| This 4-minute exposure of comet Ikeya-Seki was captured by Roger Lynds at Kitt Peak, Arizona, on the morning of 1965 October 29. Copyright; Roger Lynds |
"I recall that one day at around 4:30 hrs (01st / 02nd week of Nov.) we saw it for the 1st time.
It was a terrifying sight for me. Never ever expected to see something like this having such an expanse!
It was cold outside - so went for cover inside!
It was there for some 2 / 3 weeks - was visible till 10:00hrs - gradually the tail length reduced and it disappeared! "
A few days after I saw it pre-dawn, my six year old daughter joined the multi-generational bandwagon, seeing the comet, also her first ever. This time it was in the evening an hour after twilight from our backyard in the west. Some further nudges led to other family and friends to look for it. Some reported seeing it from Austin and Dallas, London and Kolkata. From 6 to 70 year old - suddenly many in my circle were curious, asking for information, researching and even driving out of city lights to catch a glimpse. It turned out to be a pleasant pastime, a little celebration of curiosity at a dismal time when the world was in the grip of a global pandemic.
8820 - Wiser
The next time Neowise would visit the earth would be 6800 years later, somewhere around 8820 CE.
Astute astronomers, relentless amateurs or part machines, I wonder who, (or what) would welcome Neowise on its next trip around the sun. While they will certainly be wiser than we will ever be, I hope that they will for a moment, imagine their predecessors, thousands of years ago, looking at the same comet, their minds brimming with the same curious amazement shared across millennia.
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