Still excited by the meteorological event of last week (the northern lights), we turned our eyes to the sky once again to see a different type of event – a rare comet with a large tail that came within 44 million miles of Earth – Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. It was present in the western sky about thirty minutes after sunset for much of October 2024.
We have a pretty dark sky at our house since we live on a bit of a hill that shields us from some of the city lights to the southeast. We were standing outside and saw a meteor on a random night once. But when we truly want to enjoy an astronomy event we typically take advantage of our closest national park system site – Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Our first foray into Valley Forge for astronomy was a few years back on a chilly evening for the Geminid meteor shower. The Geminid peak is an annual event in mid-December each year. That time, we stopped in a parking lot along Valley Forge Park Rd near the Washington Memorial Chapel to check out the meteors. And unlike most of our stargazing pursuits so far, we actually saw several of them to our good fortune.
We had better look with the A3 Atlas comet, which was present in the night sky persistently rather than disappearing quickly like a meteor. We stopped at the first parking lot past the visitor center parking areas along the park road, and we saw a few other people gathered there to look for the comet. One of them with a large prosumer camera graciously helped us identify the area to see the comet, and we were able to locate it using our phones ability to take long exposure photos.
I have been out searching for comets a number of times with family, and this was among the easiest to find. I couldn’t quite see it definitively with the naked eye that night, but my camera phone picked it up well and after that I could make out the area that it was in without assistance.
In the photos you can see the recreated log cabins that are situated along the park road (Outer Line Drive) between the visitor center and the National Memorial Arch with the comet overhead.