A number of comets will come within the range of amateur telescopes. Some come and go quietly, but are notable.
A comet is about to make a close approach to the Earth. On February 1st comet C/2022 E3 will make its first approach in 50,000 years. Whether or not one will actually be able to see the comet depends on a number of factors including location and light pollution.
Don't be discouraged. The Virtual Telescope Project will be giving away a free livestream of the comet even if you don't have the right equipment to view it. On Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 there are times when the sun rises and the sun sets. You can watch the live broadcast on the project's website or on its website's channel.
There are facts about the "dirty snowballs" of space.
Astronomers Frank Masci and Bryce Bolin came across an object which they initially thought was an asteroid. It was estimated by the human eye to be about 25,000 times fainter than a star. Subsequent observations showed that the object was a comet. The designation C/2022 E3 was given to it because it was the third object discovered in the last half-month. The comet was located 399 million miles away from the sun or inside the Jupiter's atmosphere.
Astronomers determined that C/2022 E3 will have an orbital period of roughly 50,000 years. The last passage through the inner solar system is thought to have happened during the Upper Paleolithic. The last people to look up and witness this visitor from the depths of the outer solar system were probably Homo Sapiens or Neanderthals.
This could be the last time that C/2022 E3 arrives. According to the latest elements, the comet is currently travelling on an elliptical path with an eccentricity of 1.00027. After it sweeps around the sun, C/2022 E3 will move back out into deep space and never come back. This will be the last time the comet performs for us. The comets are made to glow by the sun's light because they are composed of frozen gases.
The cloud of gas is called a coma.
Dust from the comet's nucleus is released into space as the gases warm. We call this appendage the tail because of the solar wind's blow. The comets were called "hairy stars" because they looked like stellar heads.
There are two basic types of comets.
The comets that are bright can be seen on average two or three times a year. In July 2020, the last comet to do that was NEOWISE.
Most of the common comets can be seen with a telescope or good binoculars. The vast majority of comets fall into this category, but C/2022 E3 may end up ranking as bright as most common comets, since for a short while it may hover right at the edge of naked-eye visibility.
The comet needs to approach closer to the sun than the Earth in order to be easily seen. The closest approach to the sun will be on January 12th. It will start moving away from the sun. After passing the sun, most comets remain active for a few weeks and this will be good for our visibility.
The distance between the comet and the Earth shrinks rapidly after perihelion. The distance will decrease between January and February. The comet's brightness is expected to increase more than five times.
The closest approach to Earth will take place at 1:11 pm. On February 1st, it was a distance of over 28 million miles.
C/2022 E3 is a predawn object that rises in the northeast shortly after midnight. The comet's closest approach to the sun will take place on January 12th. As it approaches the Earth, it will begin to move against the background stars.
On the 14th, the comet will move into northern Botes, and by the 20th, it will become circumpolar.
On the nights of Jan. 26 and Jan. 27, it can be conveniently found passing several degrees to the east of the bowl of the Little Dipper. On the evening of Jan. 27, it will be 3.5° to the upper right of orange Kochab, the brightest of the two outer stars in the bowl. On the evening of Feb. 1, when C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is passing closest to Earth, it will be within the boundaries of the vague and dim constellation of Camelopardalis. By Feb. 5, it will pass within a couple of degrees to the west of the brilliant yellow-white star Capella and the next night it will be within the triangle that makes up "The Kids" asterism in Auriga and will be located almost directly overhead at around 8 p.m. local standard time.
A number of different predictions have been made regarding the brightness of C/2022 E3 (ZTF) as it passes closest to Earth at the start of February. I believe, based on observations of C/2022 E3 through early January, that the forecasts of Japanese comet expert Seiichi Yoshida (opens in new tab) and Dutch comet expert Gideon Van Buitenen (opens in new tab), will be close to the truth, indicating a magnitude of no fainter than +7.5 during early January and peaking near +5 by the Feb. 1 perigee.
The comet should be visible to the untrained eye by the third week of January.
As compelling as this may sound, I have to warn you that it is not as exciting as you might think.
Many people will attempt to follow the path of C/2022 E3 across the night sky later this month. Depending on your observing site, it will be hard to see it. It's going to be difficult to see this comet from places that are polluted with light. Finding the comet could be a challenge for people who are blessed with dark skies. As the comet gets closer to Earth, it will become larger in size and appear as a diffuse object.
Many will question the predictions for a fifth or sixth magnitude object. You're not looking for a sharp star-like object, but something which is spreading its light over a large area.
The best way to locate a comet under a dark sky is to use your own two eyes.
The comet has a greenish color and has two tails, one of which is long. Long-exposure images tend to be misleading. They bring out colors that are hard to see. The comet's head looks green due to a molecule made from two carbon atoms. The comet's head is where the chemical process takes place.
Two types of tails are thrown off by comets: tails composed of gas and tails composed of dust. Dust tails are more spectacular to look at than gas tails because of their effectiveness in reflecting sunlight. The comets with long, bright tails are the most amazing.
The gas tails glow with a bluish hue. The tail glows in the same way that black light causes phosphorescent paint to light up because the gas is activated by the sun.
Gas tails produced by most comets are impressive in photographs, but not visually. That's what we're seeing right now. At this time, the comet is short and stubby.
I believe that most people who find C/2022 E3 in their binoculars or telescopes will describe it as a nearly circular cloud, which is brighter and less dense than the center. The comet's dust tail may appear to be a bit of an extension of the coma, but it's not the kind of tail that other larger and brighter comets have.
The moon is one of the factors that will affect views of the comet.
The bright light will make it hard to see the comet in the early morning sky, but it will diminish over time. The new phase will be arriving on January 21. After a few days, it will reappear in the western evening sky as a thin crescent, but it will also interfere with observations of the comet.
There is a question about the moon phase. The lunar phases will last for a few years.
The dark sky opens up after the full moon. Between the end of evening twilight and moonrise, there will be a half hour of darkness. C/2022 E3 will be visible from the end of evening twilight until about 11PM. It will sit less than 2 to the upper left of bright Mars and will stand 75 above the south-southeastern horizon at nightfall.
If you don't have everything you need to view the comet, be sure to check out our guides for the best binoculars and telescopes to view it. If you want to take the best comet images, we have recommendations for the best cameras andlenses.
I am happy to be hunting comets.
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There is an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for a number of publications. We encourage you to follow us on social media:
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