Tips for those looking for Neowise

Comets are really rare. Neowise won't be back for almost 7000 years and the next known comet will be Halleys comet in 2061. This is the last weekend to see Neowise so take advantage if you can. Here are tips I gathered after searching for the past four days.

Where to view

• You cannot see the comet from the greater Houston area IMO. The comet is very faint, much fainter than stars, so if you can't even see stars there will be no way you'll be able to see Neowise.
• You need to find an area that has very little light pollution. I used this light pollution map and drove to a green area and even then it was almost impossible to see with the naked eye. That being said you don't have to drive far. I drove only about an hour outside of downtown Houston to just past Sealy. I pulled off to a dirt path just right outside the TA travel center.
• Find an open field. Neowise isn't terrible low on the horizon, but you still need a somewhat unobstructed view of the horizon.

How to locate Neowise

• You will need to find the big dipper. The big dipper will be hanging almost vertically from its handle. Find the bottom far corner of the big dipper and look straight down. You'll find Neowise 2/3^rds down from this corner when measuring the length between this point and the horizon.
• You will need to look in the northwest corner of the sky. I used the iphone compass and turned to 283 degrees.
• Neowise looks like a star that someone smudged with an eraser. The tail will be going off to the 2 o'clock position.

Time to look

• Between 9:30 and 10:30PM. The later you look the lower Neowise will be on the horizon until it disappears. Again Neowise is very faint so it needs to be very dark. Looking while there's even a single ray sunlight will be make this impossible.

Useful equipment

• It is incredibly hard to see Neowise with the naked eye and I highly recommend binoculars. I bought the cheapest ones from Academy for 30 dollars and they were more than enough.
• Comet Neowise App
• Starwalk 2
  • This app is incredible. Using the app I was able to easily find: the big dipper, the little dipper, the north star, Jupiter, Saturn, Libra, Virgo, Leo, Scorpio, Lyra. I have ZERO prior astronomy experience

TL;DR: Drive as far as you can tolerate from Houston, turn 283 degrees and use binoculars to look beneath the big dipper between 9:30 and 10:30