C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)
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C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

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daily life

My friend and I saw it in the news in late September: There's a comet that's going to be visible to the naked eye in October. We were expecting it for a while. It was supposed to be the brightest on October 12, when it was closest to the Earth. But it was supposed to be observable until October 19 with a brightness comparable to a regular star.

It was cloudy for weeks in my city. My friend and I were hoping for the best. He had his telescope at the ready, but no luck...

Yesterday was the first clear day we've had in a while. As soon as the sun started to go down, I went to my friend's house. His brother was already there, as were two telescopes and a camera. All three of us tried to see if we could make out anything in the night sky, but it was completely empty, aside from the occasional airplane.

An hour later, my friend claimed that he could see it. His brother and I couldn't see anything — not even with a telescope. I honestly thought he was bullshitting us, until he managed to take a photo on a camera with a 6-second shutter speed. I guess his eye surgery wasn't a total waste!

We decided to try and take light pollution out of the equation. Gladly, at least one of us is able to drive, so we went out of town into the fields. It was easier to see stars in the night sky, but no luck with the comet: my friend could still see it, and the other two of us still couldn't. At this point there was nothing else we could do: we were too late to the party — the comet was too dim, so we wrapped up our adventure and headed home. In that moment, all I could think was, "I just ditched my Japanese class for nothing." But I have no regrets, as I spent time in good company. Maybe we'll have better luck next time.

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