Reply To: Any Good Comets Visible For Small Telescopes?

Forums Comets Any Good Comets Visible For Small Telescopes? Reply To: Any Good Comets Visible For Small Telescopes?

#612543
Nick James
Participant

Hi David,

I had a great view of that comet and NLC too on the night of Friday/Saturday, 2020 July 10/11. That night was one of the best observing experiences of my life. A stunning naked-eye comet and really dynamic and bright NLC.

Sadly we don’t have anything like that at the moment. The brightest comet around in the northern sky is probably C/2022 E3 (ZTF). It is around 13th mag at the moment so probably too faint for a small telescope but we hope that it will reach 6th magnitude in late January next year when it will be moving rapidly across the sky under the pole.

The best places to go to get an idea of the current state of comets in the sky is Jonathan Shanklin’s site here:

https://people.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/

and our Comet Section image archive here:

https://britastro.org/cometobs/

For the latest images of C/2022 E3 scroll down to near the bottom of the list and then click on the “gallery” link.

We’re always happy to receive observations of comets so please let me know how you get on.