No Comets Here

The week-long spell of fog broke this Saturday and there was a possibility that Comet ALTLAS G3 would be visible in the Northern Hemisphere, at least according to the photos shared on the EarthSky website. A secondary web ephemeris painted a less rosy picture, and an app on my phone split the difference.  ALTAS G3 was there, and maybe, just maybe, it would be visible from Eugene.

Thinking that I would kick myself if I missed a chance to get a viewing—and photograph—of the comet, I bundled up against the 38F temperature, loaded up my camera and tripod into the car and sped off to Spencer Butte. I was pretty sure that if I tried to see the comet from the top of our local hill, the comet would be behind the South Hills of Eugene.  Or someone's house.  Or a streetlamp.

Spencer Butte isn’t that far away, but it’s about a 25 minute mile hike to the 2054 foot summit. Eugene spills out to the northeast, there’s a good view of the Cascade Mountains to the east, and the Coastal Mountains to the west. When I got to the butte's parking lot around 4:30,  it was packed. I rested the tripod and camera against my shoulder and began the assent. It’s been a few months since I last climbed the butte, my not-quite-huffing-and-puffing was a reminder of how I’ve gotten out of shape.

The setting sun painted the west sides of the pines and shrubs ruddy gold.  A little over halfway up, there was something like white ash on the trail, and occasionally, white flakes of not-snow fell.  I reached over and touched a frosty white branch of underbrush.  The water drop hanging from it was rigid ice.  Closer to the summit, the sun turned the frost golden. I paused for just a moment to take a photo with my phone, then I continued on to the final steps along hewn stone stairs.

The sun had just gone below the horizon around 5:00 when I unfolded my tripod just below the old observation point at the butte’s peak. A wind from the north whipped loose strands of my hair. Haze from the week’s inversion smudged the edge of the sky, and low clouds on the horizon glowed pink and crimson. 

The sky was way too bright for any comet to show up.

I was under the impression that the parking lot closed at 6:00, which meant that I’d only have about a half hour to get any good photos. I scanned the horizon, thinking that the comet might be at a magnitude to be visible, but all I saw was a really nice twilight glow and one striking cloud formation that looked like a trireme. The comet might have been behind a band of clouds, or it might have been much dimmer than I thought.

Venus became apparent, so I snapped a photo of it. The layer of haze from the inversion also became apparent.

A young woman—I wasn’t sure if she was in high school or college—asked me, “Is that a camera?” I was a little puzzled by the question—maybe she thought my camera was a telescope, or maybe she meant to ask “What are you doing?”—but I explained that it was a camera, that I was hoping to spot ATLAS G3 (here I whipped out the astronomy app), but that so far all I was seeing was Venus, and that as the comet moved away from the sun, it might be in a better position for viewing, but that it might get too dim.” This seemed to make an impression on her and her female friend, and they left with a benediction of good wishes.

More and more folks left the summit.

I pulled out my iPhone, which sometimes can capture traces of auroras and comets that I’m missing, and snapped a series of photos along the horizon. At 5:30, I checked the astronomy app: it showed ATLAS G3 setting. I took some more photos of the area of the sky where I guessed the comet might be, thinking that seeing the comet would have been much easier from Australia or Ecuador or some other place other than Eugene. 

Then it was time to head back.

The darkness grew. I had rushed out of the house without a proper flashlight. This wasn’t so bad; I could have used my phone’s light, and in any case, I like to walk at nigh without a light. The stone stairs weren’t too much of a problem, but I was glad that it wasn’t too dark when I descended. Two (different) women about thirty feet ahead of me walked with a cell phone light, so it was easy to see where the dark path was going.

As I followed, I thought to try to really listen to the woods as I walked (and not think about cougars). I caught glimpses of Venus through the shadows of the tree trunks. Eugene traffic noises floated up from the city. I became aware of brain chatter, and a soundtrack in my head. When I tried not to name the trees or Venus, I heard Ursula Le Guin reading a passage from “She Unnames Them.” I never really got rid of the soundtrack. I did change the brain chatter to “crunch, crunch, crunch” to match my footsteps on the gravel path, but it was still getting in the way of a zen moment in the woods.

The most challenging part of the hike was returning to the parking lot, which was illuminated by a Very Bright Light that blinded me and made staying on the pathway difficult.

And the mounting socket on the bottom of my camera fatigued off when I set the camera against the car's seat.  This will make using the tripod to take pictures of stellar objects difficult.

At home, looking at the photos on a larger screen, I might have gotten a picture of the comet, but its much more likely a bright cloud lit up by the setting sun.