Only attempting C/2025 , in fact I have a few shots! I'll post something quick and dirty when I bring the telescope in. It's so low on the horizon to me and it's right as it gets dark (EDIT - Also I live in a bowl of mountains so low shooting is very tricky) so I'll be shooting over a few days. Good news is the lil Seestar can stack images on it! That will help me (hopefully) clean up the pics.
Lol I'm a dumbass - I thought it was Lemmon , it's not it's Swan (the farther one). Here is a pic straight off the app (not cleaned up) I'm too damn tired to try cleaning it up. I'll mess with it more tomorrow and over the weekend.
I'd be glad to but I am striking out HARD. I live in the high desert and it's been overcast and fucking raining(?!!??) every night.
If you are in the US look west just after dark to see A6 Lemmon. It will look literally like a fuzzy star to the naked eye. The other one would be hard to see naked eye, it's the green one I posted a few days ago.
theskylive.com
Its not zero light pollution like Big Bend, but just about anywhere in west Texas is pretty good for star gazing. Cap Rock Canyons State Park is a nice little trip this time of year with some nice camping spots. Closer than Big Bend.Probably wont see anything like Hale-Bopp again in our lifetime. I don't think Halley's gets as bright as that comet got. Additionally, if you are stuck in a big city, you are pretty much fucked for looking at many/most celestial objects. Big Bend National Park is the closest "zero" light pollution spot for all of Texas and possibly some of the surrounding states as well.
Closest imitation would probably be camping in Big Bend during one of the heavy meteor showers (not sure what the meteor/hour rate is for any of them).
As for websites/apps, yeah, Stellarium is awesome for just looking at the current night sky and even watching satellites zip across. While I haven't used TheSkyLive.com until recently, it has some neat functionality. On the bar at the top-ish it has some handy shortcuts like what's visible right now and what's visible tonight (2025 A6 Lemmon wont show up on "visible now" because it's already under the horizon but will still be listed on "the sky tonight"). Also, the orbital visualization is cool. Set for DFW:
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The Sky Tonight
An observing guide for the sky tonight, customized for your location. Includes an interactive star map and a detailed timeline of visible planets, comets, and asteroids visible during the night.
As someone who loves stargazing, you really are doing yourself a disservice if you never go to a place that has no light pollution. I have been to the big bend area and its great, but going to a spot in the pacific hundreds of miles from anything and looking up... seeing the milkyway the way our ancestors for millenia did is just amazing.
Who said I never go? Why are you always making shit up? I've been to BigBend half a dozen times and spent three summers in northern Montana.
I was speaking generally to others on the forum, it wasn't a personal attack at you.
Haha its not that sealed in the park. You can still wade across the Rio Grande just about anywhere. They leave little copper wire trickets out all over the place that you can buy on the honor system. What is sealed are all the exits, even before Trump, so its never been much of an entry point for illegals. Definitely worth the trip.
The stars I saw when we were out to sea and heading to Columbia were incredible. Never saw such a full sky in my life.
Yeah, out on the Pacific Ocean in the dark waters, dry air and no moon, the sky becomes almost surreal looking. The best night sky I ever saw was about 900 miles west of Columbia. The great thing about a place like big bend is the dry air and elevation make it almost certain you’ll get a really nice view of the stars, and it’s a lot more accessible. I was actually an avid star watcher for a long time before I first saw the Milky Way hanging out in the sky visible to the naked eye, totally a mind blowing experience. Seeing a copper meteorite and a false sunrise were to of my other big ones I remember. The one thing I really want to see before I die is a supernova visible to the naked eye.