The Green Comet, C/2022 E3
Those intrepid Voices readers who rise early before the sun and who know where to look may easily find in the Green Comet these days. That is officially C/2022 E3 and your humble hacker and plodder blogger, being retired and a light sleeper, has stepped outside on my deck and has been observing this comet for several days.
If you look high in the north sky near the Big and Little Dippers before dawn you can find it. its not visible to the naked eye (may be later) and you will need binoculars but if you scan around in that small area you will probably find it. I had no problem using 8x binoculars, 10x binoculars, and was able to get my 60x spotting scope on it. I don’t own a telescope.
You’ve likely read that it is a spectacular sight, a rare green comet, that will not be seen on this planet for another 50,000 years or so. It’s last visit was in the Stone Age. Perhaps my Neanderthal ancestors looked up from their cave and saw this strange sight, “ugh!,” they may have said. My Neanderthal DNA may have contributed to my interest in such things.
Descriptions of the comet have been bold and sensational. “Never to be seen again by humans” a breathless, apocalyptically inclined scribe writes.
“Sensational,” many say.
It is “spectacular!”
“A once in a lifetime opportunity” news outlets report. Duh. Most comets are once in a lifetime opportunities.
Naturally, if you are a Young Earther, you presume no such age but rather figure it and everything else beyond 6,000 years or so was an act of special creation or some quantum trickery. As for the comet’s return in 50k years, maybe so or maybe not. Using YE calculus maybe it will be back by the Ides of March…this year.
My breathless (it was cold on my deck), first hand, eyes on report on the Green Comet:
- It is not spectacular
- It is not green
- It is a comet.
I’m up at 4 am for this?
It’s a faint, gauzy cotton ball in the sky – a spot of misplaced fog or mist. A speck of dust on my binocular lens.
Astronomers layer telescope images to get the green and to show the definition and the comet’s tail. At 60x on my scope I may be seeing one side of the comet somewhat flatter than the other but that’s about it.
Maybe it will pop out with color and fireworks after it goes behind the Sun.
It is certainly not as described or advertised. Bah! Humbug!
I expect that if you, dear reader with your chattering teeth and cheap binoculars, rise early and take a look you will yawn and go back to bed.
But look at it this way: you have just this one opportunity to see C/2022 E3. After this, it’s gone for your lifetime and a hundred more after you.
Take a shot at it!. Suppress the lame excuse for rising early that it’s probably a dud. Get out there. Take a look and then brag about it with your friends.
t’s interesting if not spectacular, like most sermons I’ve heard.
____________________
The image above is not the Green Comet. If an astute reader has the ability to photograph the comet, please post it here. I have no camera that can zoom in sufficiently to get any image.
______________
In a related matter, did you know that there is a YE “Archbishop Ussher Work Group” that is recalculating the age of the earth? They have a preliminary conclusion and have established the age as exactly 6507 years. I don’t know about all that but it looks like a winning number to me.
