Comet C/2023 A3 aka Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

In mid-October we did what many folks around the world were doing, looking up into the night sky to search for Comet C/2023 A3, also known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. I saw a few people in the Houston area say they were able to find it and so we trekked out to a more open area of the county one mid-week evening to search for it but never found it. I looked around for more information on how to spot it in the sky and approximately what time around sunset, and so we trekked out another evening to try once more. It was visible much later after sunset than what some people were telling me and it took me taking random photos in the sky and inspecting them for me to even figure out where it was located. Seeing it with our naked eyes was much more difficult than I expected! I intended to go back out with my camera and take some better photos but changed my mind when I decided that I didn’t really need to have camera photos and other people with much better cameras and skills for night photography had already documented it. I could look at their photos! The event coincided with the October Super Moon/Hunter’s Moon, so that was nice to have two celestial events in one outing!

Actually, this has been a really great celestial year: an eclipse, two aurora borealis events we experienced, plus the comet and the super moon!