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Wednesday, November 6, 2024

The ‘comet of the century’ captured as it passes by Ibiza

The Ibizan photographer Jose Antonio Hervรกs has photographed thecomet of the century as it passes over Ibiza. This comet, whose name is C/2023 A3 or Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is being seen all over the world. “Finally, after a few days behind it, I managed to photograph it and it just happened, after planning it, to have the cathedral of Ibiza in the foreground”, explains Hervรกs to this newspaper.

“I had been hearing for several weeks about its appearance around this time and finally the moment arrived. It can be seen looking eastward and with the help of binoculars at dawn between 6.35 and 7.10 a.m.”, says the photographer, who has in his resume having published two of his images on the NASA Picture Day.

They say that the third time’s the charm and this was so, says Hervรกs. “I had been getting up early on Saturday at five in the morning to prepare everything and go between the open fields near the soccer field of Can Misses, but in two attempts, the clouds on the horizon hid the comet, frustrating the moment and I left a little angry, although I’m used to this usually happens very often when I photograph the moon,” says the photographer.

So at the third dawn, Hervรกs observed that the Moon, which was very low near the horizon, had very good visibility and he sensed that there were no clouds. “I reassembled the photography equipment and returned to the place to capture the comet behind the Ibiza Cathedral,” Hervรกs continues his story.

“When I got to the point where I had to take the picture, I mounted camera to the tripod and I could see that the whole sky was completely clear of clouds; the nerves began to be noticed in case something happened, but finally, looking through the camera I could see how the comet begins to look just as I planned; at that moment I started to photograph in ‘Timelapse’ mode to not miss any capture”, assures Hervas. “The cry of happiness was total, at last I was able to capture something that will only be visible for a few days and will not be seen again,” he says happily.

The comet C/2023 A3 or Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has caused such a stir in the astronomical world precisely because it would be visible to the naked eye due to its brilliance and because it has an impressive tail as it passes close to the Sun, at a distance similar to the orbit of Mercury.

A comet of such caliber is not seen every day. The last time a comet this bright was visible from the northern latitudes was the Comet Hale-Boppwhich lit up the sky in 1997.

C/2023 A3 or Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has a magnitude of about 2.6, which is brighter than expected, and it is getting brighter every day. Comets can be seen with the naked eye when they reach a magnitude of about 4 in a dark sky, the astronomical guide Star Walk 2 explains.

If C/2023 A3 survives perihelion (point in the orbit closest to the Sun) on October 12, it will come as close to Earth as possible, reach maximum brightness and be observable even with the naked eye.

Meaning of the comet’s name

The letter ‘C’ indicates a non-periodic comet. Comets of this type originate in the Oort cloud and may pass through the Solar System only once or take 200 to thousands of years to orbit the Sun, Star Walk 2 explains.

‘2023 A3’ means that the comet was discovered in 2023, in the first half of January (this corresponds to the letter A in the IAU comet nomenclature system), and was the third such object discovered in the same period.

Finally, ‘Tsuchinshan-ATLAS’ means that the discovery was made using telescopes of the Purple Mountain Observatory (Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory) and the Asteroid Terrestrial Terrestrial Last Land Impact Warning System (ATLAS).

For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza websiteย here.

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