Why Can’t I See the Comet ATLAS, But My Phone Can?
If you don’t love comets, you haven’t seen a comet. I mean, it’s a giant ball of ice that you can sometimes see with your naked eye as it makes a pass near the Sun. In the case of the recent comet (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) if you don’t cant it in the next couple of weeks then you are going to have to wait 1.4 billion years until you can see it again.
That’s your signal to go outside tonight and see the comet. It will be in the west above the location where the sun set. If you more details about where to spot this thing, I like the online Stellarium site. You can also just google “how can I find the comet”.
There is one problem — right now, the comet is not super bright. Since it’s close to the Sun, you will try to see it right after sunset — but the sky is not completely dark. If you wait later, it will be darker (that’s good) but also the comet will move closer to the horizon. Where I live, there’s trees everywhere that get in the way.
Last night, I went out to look for the comet. It wasn’t dark enough for me to see it — I took a photo with my iPhone 13 anyway. BOOM. There it was. It seems crazy that our phone cameras have become so advanced that they can see stuff that our eyes can’t detect. Remember your first camera phone photos (before smart phones). Those were some pretty crappy images.
