Lemme see what I can get for you from my astronomy peeps!
@GregRedd whereabouts in SA are you located? It can make a difference to your viewing and timing.
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We’re over in the Woodmead side of Joziburg.
Info has been hard to find about the comet, but I just got this today.
Sunday evening comet visit.
I’d recommend getting somewhere with some elevation and a good clear line of sight to the west horizon because it will be very low. And a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope would serve you well, because to the naked eye it can be just a little smudge in the night sky.
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And this is just interesting:
Jacques van Delft Solar Observations 18h Today on Spaceweather:
THIS CME WILL HIT EARTH AND A COMET: Active sunspot AR3842 erupted again on Oct. 7th (1913 UTC), producing an X2-class solar flare (image). The explosion hurled a significant CME into space. This SOHO coronagraph image shows the CME and Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which is passing between Earth and the sun today: The CME is going to hit both the comet and Earth, in that order. The CME will strike the comet later today or perhaps early on Oct. 9th, The impact could actually rip off the comet’s tail. The same thing happened to Comet Enke in April 2007. A broken tail is something astronomers should look for when Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS emerges from the sun’s glare later this week. According to a NASA model, the CME will graze Earth late on Oct. 9th or early on Oct. 10th. The impact could cause another strong geomagnetic storm with auroras at mid-latitudes in the USA and Europe. NOAA analysts are looking at this CME now and may soon issue a refined forecast.
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So, in your professional Space opinion, does this qualify, as this layman suspects, as “woooooooooooooooooooooooow!!”?
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Aurora sightings as far south as places like Virginia and Barcelona… seeing incredible images all over social media and in the news.
Even xkcd is getting in on the action…
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Suddenly Test Flight 5.
Thats around 2pm our time.
They are actually going for the super wild idea of catching the booster with the chopsticks (however if conditions aren’t met they can trigger an abort that will send it to do a soft splashdown in the ocean)
SpaceX stream on X
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1845210284270682178?t=LscZebakMB0ZpfQeSEs_lQ&s=19
NSF stream
https://www.youtube.com/live/YC87WmFN_As
Everyday Astronaut
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Succesfull launch and booster capture by the launch gantry’s “chopsticks”. Amazing. Returning the booster to the same pad that it launched from. Not perfect, but a really good first attempt.
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Damn, beautiful stuff
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Flight 6 is apon us, crazy turnaround time.
and now its less than 12 hours away. This is also the last V1 ship to fly, they already have a V2 ready to go, excluding engine testing.
If you’re not sure how big the ship is, banana for scale(held by a Peanut Butter Jelly banana):
Launch streams:
SpaceX (sucky X stream, but best views):
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1RDGlydZAeOJL
NSF:
Everyday Astronaut
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Dat daytime ocean landing dou
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1859010620471079361
Also inflight raptor relight completed, Flight 7 full orbital?
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