Autumn Comets

From the photographer: “In the evening of 15th October 2024, a few friends and I drove to Kirazli village, on the road to Uludağ NP near Bursa, Turkey. This is a nice spot I frequently visit because of its 1200-meter altitude and open views of the west. It is also just 20 km from home. In fact, I had photographed another comet C/2021 A1 Leonard, back in 2021 from here, in much different conditions (featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day).

Some passing clouds were present around sunset, but they nicely cleared the way as it got darker. The comet became visible as the twilight faded. After some point, the light of the bright gibbous Moon took over the fading twilight, and it did not get dark any further. Even with the bright moonlight, comet was easily visible with its head shining at mag. +2 and at least 20 degree of tail extending straight towards 11 o’clock direction. I estimated the total magnitude of Tsuchinshan-Atlas as ~ +1.

One other positive effect of the moonlight was having our mountain scenery lit up and nicely visible. In Bursa at ~150 meters of elevation, we don’t see and feel much autumn yet. But, around Kirazli autumn has surely arrived, it is full of yellows and oranges.

A careful look at Tsuchinshan-Atlas also finds the bright globular cluster M5 in Serpens shining nearby, and also another comet, 13P/Olbers shining at 9th magnitude. Olbers was a fine sight all of summer 2024, when it returned to inner Solar System first time after 68 years. Moving the slider on the picture annotates where to see M5 and especially Olbers, which may otherwise difficult to find.”