Pablo Arauz Peña, KTOO

When the Neowise comet started trending online, Alaskans saw it as an opportunity to go comet-hunting. Stargazers across the continent have been posting photos of the comet as it hurtles through space, but with Juneau’s weather bringing lots of clouds and rain, seeing the comet has been a tough game of chance.

Longtime Juneauite Jim Hale considers himself an amateur astronomer. He was lucky enough to witness Halley’s comet in 1986 and Hale-Bopp in 1996, but Wise had no luck trying to see Neowise last week from Eagle Beach.

“I was out there past midnight, when finally it got dark enough, and I knew about where this comet was supposed to be. I could see the Big Dipper, but just where the comet was supposed to be, the clouds had moved in.”

Mark Conde, a physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says Neowise may be a visitor from a zone of space beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers were surprised when the Neowise orbiting satellite — which looks for objects that could potentially threaten Earth — spotted the comet on March 27.

But no need to worry about any cosmic collision. Conde says there’s absolutely no chance the comet will hit earth. It’s about 66 million miles away.

On a relatively clear night, the chances of seeing the comet are better down south, where it’s darker, than they are up north. Conde says the best time to see it would be around 2 a.m., and it will be closest to the earth on Thursday, July 23.

If you’re looking for Neowise, Conde says the comet should look like a “fuzzy little star” below the Big Dipper.

“If you look a bit more carefully and let yourself sort of, you know, let your brain see deep into the sky,” Conde said, “you should start to see a tail that’s hitting up and to the right of the comet.”

Juneau locals Jennifer Karnik and Rob Mayer already caught a glimpse of the comet last week. Karnik says they didn’t have much hope of seeing it at first.

“We’re in Juneau, you know, never going to see anything, you know, kind of given up on it,” she said.

When conditions improved, they decided to make the trek up to Eaglecrest on Douglas Island.

“Wednesday afternoon comes along, and the sky starts brightening and the clouds start parting,” Karnik said. “We watched through the evening and decided around nine o’clock or so that it was worth at least giving it a try.”

Karnik and Mayer watched the clouds as they waited. It wasn’t until about 11:30 p.m. that they could see most of the cloudless sky.

“You could actually see the comet with your naked eyes,” Karnik said. “I mean, it was just actually in the sky. I think I yelled.”

Karnik got a decent shot of the comet with her smartphone through the telescope. Mayer, who is an avid astrophotographer, took a 4-second exposure with his camera.

“I was very happy to at least get three images that were at a sharp, perfect focus out of the 40 or so that I took,” he said.

And they truly are once-in-a-lifetime photos. According to EarthSky.org, this comet won’t return for another 6,800 years.

A Juneau man is accusing the police department of using excessive force and racially profiling him during a recent traffic stop.

Jose Ignacio Manzo told his story during a June meeting of the Juneau Assembly dedicated to issues of race and policing in the capital city. He believes police confused him with another man with a Spanish surname who was arrested earlier that morning.

Manzo was pulled over early in the morning of June 7 on Highland Drive in the parking lot of the Breakwater Inn, but a police report puts the location 3 miles away on the 100 block of Savikko Road — as they were responding to a report of “shots fired.”

“I kind of freaked out a little bit because it was out of nowhere,” said Manzo. “He proceeded to pull me out of the vehicle with his gun [cocked] and telling me to get out of the vehicle and to drop whatever weapon I had on me which was not a weapon, it was my cell phone.”

Manzo says the officer who stopped him, Joseph Paden, was armed with an AR-15 and called another officer for backup. They proceeded to search Manzo’s car for drugs and weapons. Manzo says he did not give them explicit consent to do so.

“He said he and another officer had been assaulted, and I even told him, you know, ‘oh man, I’m sorry, had a rough day,'” Manzo said. “I felt bad for him.”

Juneau Police Deputy Chief David Campbell said Manzo was not racially profiled.

“I don’t know how he could be mistaken for somebody because when we saw the car drive by you couldn’t tell who the occupant was,” said Campbell.

While Manzo’s stop didn’t fall under racial profiling by the department’s standards, why Paden conducted the traffic stop with an assault rifle is still in question.

Public records indicate there was another incident earlier that night involving a man named Jesus Manuel Abad, close to the actual location of the shots fired incident that morning on Savikko Road. But by the time Manzo was stopped 3 miles away, Abad had already been arrested and was being processed in jail.

Professor Troy Payne with the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center defines racial profiling like this.

“Most people would interpret that to mean that police have inappropriately used race at some stage of the process,” said Payne.

He’s not directly involved in Manzo’s case, but he says from what he can tell, the reason Paden was armed with a rifle was because Manzo’s stop appears to be a felony or “high risk” traffic stop.

“If you’re the citizen involved in that encounter, and particularly when you’ve done nothing wrong, or at least as far as you know, you’ve done nothing wrong, it’s really scary,” said Payne.

Manzo was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. But when he learned that the officer was looking for another man with a Spanish name, Manzo assumed he had been racially profiled and asked Paden a series of questions about his use of an assault rifle. According to Manzo, Paden said he was “just checking up on some shots fired.”

“I did continue to ask him about shooting,” Manzo said. “The only thing he ended up saying last time, the last thing was, ‘Uh, if you want go ahead and sue me,’ but I was like, ‘I don’t want to sue you and I just want things to be right you know?’”

Manzo was detained and taken to Lemon Creek Correctional facility.

City Manager Rorie Watt says he’s read the police records and watched a video of the arrest. “I have not seen any evidence that he was racially profiled,” said Watt.

Watt says there are still legal issues in Manzo’s case that need to run their course and be adjudicated. As for Manzo, there are still unresolved issues. He says that since the arrest, he’s been left shaken.

“It’s just been restless nights, panic attacks, given anxiety attacks at night, just wake up in the middle of night sweating, thinking something’s happening or something’s gonna happen.”

KTOO reached out several times to Officer Joseph Paden about the incident. He said in an email on July 22 that he could not comment on the incident.

In this newscast:

• Seven Juneau residents have tested positive for COVID-19; Alaska has been added to travel advisory lists in three East Coast states because of the state’s rising case rate.
• Nine tribal governments in Southeast Alaska submitted a petition to the United States Department of Agriculture on Tuesday.
• During a time of year when weather conditions mean lots of clouds and rain in Juneau, seeing the NEOWISE comet is a tough game of chance.
• The mayor of Anchorage is limiting gathering sizes and the number of people allowed in bars, restaurants and entertainment venues in response to rising COVID-19 cases.
• A powerful earthquake off Alaska’s southern coast has jolted coastal communities and forced residents to briefly scramble for higher ground over fears of a tsunami.

In this newscast:

• The Juneau Assembly passed an emergency ordinance last night mandating face coverings in most public settings.
• The assembly also had its first hearing and substantive discussion on Monday on a pitch to create a systemic racism review committee.
• At least one musician is performing in a very different space in Juneau — bringing playful vacation vibes to an everyday task.
• The group tasked with reforming the Alaska Marine Highway System has said a $24 million subsidy proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to run the system is insufficient.
• State prosecutors have dropped at least one criminal case because overcrowding at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute caused wait times so long that due process protections were violated.

In this newscast:

• The Juneau Assembly is taking public testimony this evening on two hot-button issues in two separate meetings.
• Tourists are still making their way to Juneau despite the canceled cruise ship season.
• The aerospace company Astra will be taking another shot at a Kodiak launch next month after a failed launch earlier this year.
• The Alaska Department of Public Safety accused Google of censorship for canceling a recruitment ad for state troopers.
• A conservation group has filed a petition seeking endangered species status for a subspecies of Alaska wolves.

In this newscast:

• Nine cases of COVID-19 have been linked to a seafood processor in Juneau.
• Fred Meyer, Safeway, Home Depot and Petco are the latest big retailers in Juneau to require their customers to wear masks.
• Ketchikan Humane Society volunteers spent hours out in the cold and rain in an attempt to save several kittens abandoned near a local trail.
• This year the annual Lovie Harris Baby Beauty Contest in Kotzebue went virtual.
• At least two different bears in Juneau have been opening car doors in search of food.