Comet ATLAS Captured Above Oregon, Even Coast - Photos, Video

Published 10/14/24 at 3:35 p.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt - Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Portland, Oregon) – Well, it was just another day driving around SW Portland and Beaverton trying to find near-Earth objects. (Photo Jim Todd, OMSI)

If that sounds random, it is: but it's what I realized I'd been doing a lot of the last two days. I was beginning to think I'd never see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3), in spite of writing about it like crazy the last few weeks. That window was narrow with cloudy weather hitting Portland and the Oregon coast for a good week after Sunday..

It supposedly made its first appearance in Oregon on Saturday, but I couldn't find it. Then Sunday, I'm zipping around the Sylvan exit area above the Portland / Beaverton border, trying to find the comet again while keeping one eye on my rig – and hoping I don't get towed.

I wasn't sure it was going to be visible on the Oregon coast with the weather systems coming in, but apparently it was in Astoria (see this link). Lucky them: someone there got a shot of it. This day was likely going to be the last one of cooperative weather for Portland. When that might finally clear next week, the moon was going to be a problem for seeing the comet, and then within days of that it wouldn't be visible to even many telescopes.

So, will the Oregon coast and rest of Oregon and Washington see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS again? From what I can tell, not with the naked eye. And if we're all really unlucky, the weather won't clear up properly by the 24th, which is about when it fades away.

Admittedly, I'm not super hopeful. So yeah, I was a bit desperate when I sped down the hills and over to Gabriel Park in SW (where I'd seen loads of amazing stuff before Spectacular Green Fireball Lights Up Oregon Valley Through Washington Coast). As I got up the little hill within the park, packing my gear, there's already a few folks gathered – armed with huge telescopes and other mysterious gadgets (one looked like a barbecue...but hey it was dark).

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After several frantic minutes of realizing clouds now covered where the comet's supposed to be and a little guidance from those other stargazers, I found the damned thing!! I started firing off desperate, random photos in the area where a man named Rob Brown told me to look. Amazingly, through the veil, there was Comet A3.

According to those folks, they had been able to see it with the unaided eye, but now it was gone from sight. Yet there it was through my zoom lens, so I snapped a bunch of shots like a timelapse.

This little session wound up interesting, with an aircraft whizzing by and creating those weird dots. That happens because the airplane's lights are flashing, and with long, three-second exposures you get about three flashes in one shot.

At one point it even seems to “collide” with the comet (which made me think of the jet in LOST). Then after several frames the comet head itself disappears, leaving behind a vague sort of puff of smoke. Somehow, just the trail stuck around a bit.

Jim Todd / OMSI

Checking social later, I wasn't the only one in Oregon to get this, and I was pleased for all of us. That might be it.

Jim Todd of Portland's OMSI sent me a couple of his shots. These were outstanding captures of a very rare comet, made even rarer to those of us in the Northwest cursed with these crummy skies (eastern side is different, though). At least we have more Aurora Borealis to look forward to this year: that solar activity isn't likely to end for awhile. But the comet? That's likely all for us along the Oregon coast or rest of the state, unless anyone here is living longer than 80,000 years. This is when Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS returns.

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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