Tonight, I managed to get to the outskirts of the city to observe and shoot comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). At my latitude, the comet is visible low above the horizon in the northeastern part of the sky an hour and a half before the onset of morning dusk. Unfortunately, the comet is not visible from my yard because of houses and trees, so I had to look for another place to observe. At about 2:30 in the night I got out to the northern part of Anapa, found an empty yard and immediately saw a small elongated spot near the horizon. The small 5х20 binoculars immediately revealed a beautiful view – a bright core and a long tail. Perhaps this is one of the most impressive comets I’ve seen (along with comet C / 1995 O1 (Hale – Bopp)).
Since the trip was more reconnaissance, I decided not to take a lot of equipment – a Canon 55-250 IS II photo lens, a Canon 550Da camera, a Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount head and a QZSD Beike QZSD Beike Q999.
A good guide to finding a comet in the next couple of days will be the Capella star. I also use the Stellarium Mobile Plus app to search for a comet. At the end of the survey, I admired the parade of planets – Venus, Mars, the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter were simultaneously visible in the sky, lining up in a line. A beautiful sight!
