Chasing Stars - Hunting Comet Neowise
Sometimes, the best things in life really do happen by chance! While I certainly wouldn’t consider the ongoing pandemic situation to be a good thing, it has forced me to work a lot more with what I have in my own personal surroundings. The absence of any major commutes has also meant that I can spend a whole lot more time in the evenings on things that I really care about. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s just at this moment that a most unusual visitor decided to come calling. Now to be fair, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), as this visitor is officially known, isn’t exactly new. It had first been discovered on March 3 rd , 2020 by the Neowise program, a team that uses NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite to look for NEOs, or Near-Earth Objects. Normally, WISE is used to hunt for exoplanets, but it is regularly used to hunt for comets, asteroids and other such stuff that could come close to Earth. However, it’s only since it passed its perihelion back on July 3 rd that comet c/20...