#staring at the majesty of the cosmos is a highly recommended activity

[cellarspider]

For anyone like me who's likely to have a cloudy night the next few days: this isn't the only day you can view the comet. I used my family's decades-old telescope to get a look at it on the 22nd, and I've gotten looks at it on several nights since, despite fairly unavailable viewing conditions.

Just be aware that even tonight, the comet's going to be faint. Bring binoculars to help you see it. A telescope is highly recommended: if you don't own one, ask around or look for a local viewing party.

And if anyone's wondering "is this really worth it?", I can share my own feelings when I saw it.

I haven't really looked at the night sky much in years. Street lights and new neighbors who think outdoor lights scare off the burglars we don't have around here have made it harder to see the stars. But I realized at 11 PM on the 22nd that the sky was fairly clear, the comet should be visible through a window protected from local light, and I remembered the old family telescope.

It took a while to get set up. Everyone else was asleep, so I was moving quietly, in the dark. The comet was too faint to see with the naked eye, so I had to navigate entirely based off of a star chart on my phone (Stellarium). Trying to remember how to find the big stars of a constellation, then chart out my course using landmarks of fainter stars, arranged in shapes I kept muttering to myself so I wouldn't forget when I went to squint into the telescope.

When I finally found the comet, it was so faint that it seemed to disappear if I looked directly at it. I could only catch it as I moved my eyes, like a ghost in the corners of my vision. But it was unmistakably different. A diffuse, wispy thing, with just a hint of trailing tail.

And when I looked at the sky beyond its halo, I realized it wasn't entirely black. Not hazy, the not-black had a texture that was perfectly unmoving. These were all stars, galaxies, everything, too faint to see distinctly, but everywhere. Uncountable in their number. In a slice of sky only one degree across.

I couldn't see the green tinge to the comet, it was too faint. Maybe looking through window glass didn't help with that. And the lens cap on the telescope squeaked abominably when I tried to put it back on. But it was 2:30 in the morning when I finally went to bed. I'd stared at the sky for hours, and I'd barely felt the time at all.

Girlies! Remember on feb 1st a green comet will be passing by earth's orbit!!!!!!! Make sure u take a sneak peek at her bc she only comes around every 50000 yrs!!!!!!!!!!!! ☄️