Talk:C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

Brightness predictions

In the section named in the Subject, the second paragraph (Maximum brightness may occur...) seems to be inconsistent with the first and third paragraphs.

Perhaps it should be stated in the second paragraph that the number is absolute magnitude, and not overall magnitude?

algocu (talk) 20:57, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Fixed it. C messier (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi fixed and please leave it at the bottom fixed 207.161.210.19 (talk) 22:02, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Unusual date format 9.4 October, not sure what it means. Should that be fixed? Assambrew (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Assambrew: It is the date with decimal in UTC, it is quite standard in astronomy to not mess with local time zones. C messier (talk) 12:42, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Of course UTC is the appropriate time to use. But I use UTC often, and have never encountered that format before. So 9.4 October would correspond to 2024-10-09 09:36 UTC, is that correct? I can see how that shorter format could be useful, but seems pretty obscure without a suffix of some kind. Can you direct me to a reference? I don't see any mention of that format in the article Coordinated Universal Time, nor at https://www.utctime.net/. Assambrew (talk) 14:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

There are some info at Decimal time#Scientific decimal time and here. C messier (talk) 20:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

C 2023 a3

What's a year 2A02:4540:700C:91F2:1:0:EF7B:D94C (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Brightness predictions clarification

I don't think that a clarification tag is needed about Gideon van Buitenen. I mean it isn't really even necessary to even have the name, but I wanted to credit him. The reason is that the comet brightness equation has a parameter named n that corresponds to brightening rate. An n of 3 is suggestive of a dynamically new comet while and n of 4 a dynamically old. As the MPC only publishes the n=3 prediction it is useful to have an n=4 prediction too. C messier (talk) 14:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Spotted by SOHO

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/comet-tsuchinshan-atlas-comes-view-coronagraph-imagery

©Geni (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Spotted by Bishan

Just it was a sunset and at the western hemispher i was ble to caught the 2001:8F8:1D28:874F:C8F0:CE7B:1744:270D (talk) 17:14, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Just it was a sunset and at the western hemispher i was able to spotted the TSUCHINSHAN ATLAS rays it was blue and clear long as halfwaydown. 2001:8F8:1D28:874F:C8F0:CE7B:1744:270D (talk) 17:32, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

discovered twice?

Should not the initial discovery stand as the only one, even if the west hates everything Chinese?

200.68.169.223 (talk) 04:40, 12 October 2024 (UTC) baden k.

But it was discovered twice. The first time it didn't receive follow-up and it was then lost and received again attention after its rediscovery, when it was also noticed it had been observed before. C messier (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

references in lead are a mess

The lead says, "on 27 September 2024, when it became visible to the naked eye.", and then gives two references dated March 2023. That is clearly wrong, because there was no way of knowing that 18 months ago. Looking at the edit history, someone changed the tense without changing the references. So new references are needed (by someone with more comet expertise than me). Adpete (talk) 04:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed --C messier (talk) 12:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Same problem in the "Brightness predictions" section, which gives an actual brightness in October based on a reference from 11 September ("and peaked at over −4 on 9 October, when it brightened by almost 6 magnitudes due to forward scattering.[reference of 11-Sep-2024]"). That section should have some up-to-date references and have "predictions" removed from the section title. Adpete (talk) 04:03, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Adpete: The predictions section is about the predictions on how bright the comet would be and they now belong to the past. There is similar section in the article about Comet Kohoutek. The observed actual brightness should be added in the observational history section. C messier (talk) 12:46, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

There's no such section for Halley's Comet or Comet McNaught. I think Kohoutek is an exception, and as I read its "Brightness predictions" section, I get the impression that the section exists only because the predictions for its brightness were so badly wrong. I'm not convinced such a section belongs in comet articles in general, or in this one. And style-wise it feels like "undue weight" to have a heading for predicted brightness but not for observed brightness. Adpete (talk) 22:22, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

This comet received a wide range of brightness predictions. It is quite telling that the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams published predictions about this comet in three different telegrams (#5228, 5404, and 5445), which is quite uncommon. Usually the predicted magnitude would be mentioned briefly in the discovery section but here there are enough info and quite spread in time for a stand alone section to exist. The observed brightness is mentioned in the observational history section. C messier (talk) 23:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

In almost anything, not just comets, what actually happened is more noteworthy than what was predicted to happen. What you are effectively saying is that this is one of few exceptions: that the predictions were so noteworthy, that the predictions deserve their own section but the observations do not. In that case, the article needs to say that. Adpete (talk) 03:34, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Adpete: the largest section of the article is named "Observational history". Not sure why you think this isn't a dedicated section about observations. C messier (talk) 05:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I left out the word "brightness". So rewording: What you are effectively saying is that this is one of few exceptions: that the brightness predictions were so noteworthy, that the brightness predictions deserve their own section but the brightness observations do not. In that case, the brightness prediction section needs to say that. Adpete (talk) 07:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@Adpete: Brightness obervations are listed in the observational history section. There are more than a dozen brightness observations throughout the section, and more can be added for the time around perihelion. Not sure how they can be separated by the rest of the observations and still be easy to follow how the comet evolved.

Originally the predictions were into the observational history section too. However after CBET published revised predictions in early summer I thought that it would be better to separate them for clarity reason (have the observed brightness separated from the predicted brightness), as there was enough material for a separate section. C messier (talk) 09:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Inquiry About Pictures

I would absolutely love to have one of my pictures added to the gallery here. Is there a formal process for this? I'll follow whatever is needed! Thank you! Twafky (talk) 01:42, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Start reading at Commons:Commons:Welcome. There might be debate about avoiding having too many photos on this Wikipedia page, but on Commons, there's likely to be less restriction - provided that you clearly declare the copyright. Boud (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC) (edit: clarify Boud (talk) 20:42, 18 October 2024 (UTC))

What is the source for the mean diameter of 3.2 km?

Note 5 is just a news story from a Colorado TV station. The diameter is not on that webpage. Becalmed (talk) 08:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that a scientific source should be used for that info, not just a news story. C messier (talk) 14:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Gallery times - UTC or local?

The gallery photos give no indication of what timezone the times refer to. Boud (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

All of them are local I believe since they're all at sunset or sunrise, and the pictures reflect that. TarotSport1 (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Incoming Period

The article gives the incoming period as 1.4 billion years. That ought to be 0.14 billion years. DR Faulkner (talk) 21:43, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It is 41 billion days, so 110 million years. C messier (talk) 09:27, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Correct. I keyed in 51 billion days instead of 41 billion days. DR Faulkner (talk) 09:31, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Gallery

BPinard Wikipedia galleries aren't supposed to be image repositories, that is the role of the Commons. It is a bright comet and as such easy to photograph. In Commons now there are upwards a hudrend images of the comet, most of them from 12-16 October. I guess you agree that they can't be all included.

Given the large number of images, we can choose the best of them. Also, it is more valuable to have in the gallery images/observations spread in time and space, not just have a large number of images from the few days it was easy to photograph. From the 14-15 October I believe that three or four are more than enough, and one of them is an APOD, also left one unstacked with foreground, one from outside the US and one from a mobile (again from outside the US). The image from Malaysia is of very poor quality. From the rest removed, 2 were from Europe and the other 11 from US, hardly worldwide.

Meanwhile, your revert removed one of the handful available pre-September images, as well one rare image from ISS with the atmosphere glowing below it. C messier (talk) 18:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)