Comet Neowise (C/2020 F3) in Parc national des Pyrénées

Posted by Wim De Meester July 15, 2020

Comet Neowise (C/2020 F3) in Parc national des Pyrénées

During our holidays in France, we really looked forward to see comet Neowise. Mails from our friends in Belgium made clear that the comet was a naked eye object. We hoped to see the comet when we were in the Pyrénées. By then, the comet was also visible in the evening.

There were a few problems however:

The weather in the Pyrénées is very variable. In ten minutes, the weather could change from sunny to totally overcast. Most of the evenings, there were so many clouds that we could not look for the comet at all.
The little house we were staying is was located at a very nice location, close to the Cirque de Troumouse. This meant that we were really in the mountains, and that we could only observe close to the horizon in a very small part of the sky. Luckily, this was the northern part of the sky, exactly were the comet should be visible. To be really sure that we could see the comet, we had to wait for a clear night.

The evening of July 15, it was finally clear. Before it was really dark, I already started to take some pictures. And the comet was already visible! After a while, it became dark enough to see the comet with the naked eye, without any problem. Also the tail of the comet was visible without problems, and was at least 5 degrees long. A really nice view! After the comet disappeared behind the mountains, we could enjoy the very dark sky of the Pyrénées. The Milky Way was amazing!