Kemukus Latitude in the Dawn Sky

By being Arik S. Wartono

At the end of this month, exactly from September 30 in the morning until October 6, 2024, a comet or sky will again cross the daytime sky in Indonesia. cubeb widthyakni Komet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS).

Comet C / 2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is not as bright as Comet Ikeya-Seki (C / 1965 S1), however, its motion is exactly the same, and everyone can see it with the open eye from dawn to after dawn. around 4.30 or up to 5.00 WIB.

It’s just that it’s best to watch Comet C / 2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in a place with little light pollution, either on a mountain or a beach far from residential lights. This comet appears in the eastern part of the sky, exactly + 10 ° from the eastern sky, visual magnitude + 1.55 to + 1.46 (the lower the visual magnitude, the brighter it is).

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) was detected by the Terrestrial Asteroid Impact Late Warning System (ATLAS) on February 22, 2023 and was observed independently several weeks earlier in January 2023 at the Observatory Purple Mountain at the Chinese Academy of Sciences ).

Official designations include Tsuchinshan and ATLAS, due to these independent observations. Orbit back-, which means that it moves in the opposite direction to most of the main objects of the solar system, such as a parabola with a perihelion distance of 0.39 astronomical units (AU). Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is special and active observed because, based on current estimates, it may be bright enough to be seen with the naked eye during its perihelion path between September and October 2024.

Meanwhile, in late September to mid-October in 1965, the daytime sky in Indonesia clearly witnessed the passage of Comet Ikeya-Seki (C/1965 S1), which was said to be one of the brightest comets of this century. Writer Ahmad Tohari immortalized this moment in one of his famous novels, namely Latitude Kemukus early in the morning (published 1985).

Nature is always moving to find balance, of course there are cycles. Likewise, the cycle of birth and death and all that goes with it have signs. There are always people coming and going in the cosmic world, macro and microcosm.

The movement of celestial bodies is certainly a natural phenomenon that runs according to its cycles: eclipses, interplanetary alignments, comets, novae, supernovae, black hole etc., have been interpreted and responded to in different ways by human civilization throughout evolutionary history.

In fact, it is legal for modern people today to see all this as normal, without needing to explain it in anything but cosmic beauty. However, a view that ignores all natural signs could be an important part of the cosmic cycle. irresponsiblefor the Prophet even invited his people to pray every time a solar and lunar eclipse occurred, as a kind of response to God’s power in all natural cycles.

In 1965 when Comet Ikeya-Seki (C/1965 S1) crossed the Asian sky, called in Java “cubeb width“At the end of September to the middle of October 1965, all past generations knew what happened after this natural sign.

In early October 2020, a star again crossed the Bojonegoro-Tuban sky with a red tail, which was actually part of the Draconid meteor shower that occurred from 6 to 10 October 2020. At that time the kite rather, they laugh with derision when natural signs are interpreted in any way outside the context of normal natural phenomena. After that, everyone knew what happened with the Corona virus or the Covid-19 outbreak, many people lost family members then.

*) Arik S. Wartonocurator, founder and supervisor of Sanggar DAUN.