comet 103P / Hartley 2 – 2010

APPROACHING COMET: Green comet 103P/Hartley 2 is approaching Earth for a close encounter on Oct. 20th. At that time, the comet will be only 11 million miles from Earth and should be dimly visible to the naked eye from dark sky sites. It already looks great through backyard telescopes. Italian amateur astronomer Toni Scarmato took [...]

Comet McNaught: Daylight comet!

I just observed Comet McNaught during the day! I made a video blog about this comet the other day, and make a couple of corrections, and give some hints on how to see this daylight spectacle.

Bright Comet 17P Holmes

Comet 17P/Holmes, a little known and dim object has become a million times brighter in the past couple of days, moving from magnitude 18 to 2.7. Comet Holmes can be found in the constellation Perseus shortly after sunset, it is ideally located right now for viewing. It is visible to the naked eye and through [...]

How to Find Comet Lulin

Comet Lulin will be closest to Earth on the night of February 23 into the 24. During that week, it will be near some bright, familiar objects and should be relatively easy to find. Grab a pair of binoculars, a camera or a telescope and see if you can have a look at it!

How to Spot Comet Lulin

Below Saturn in the night sky, towards the end of February, comet Lulin will be visible with the naked eye. Heres a handy guide on finding, not just comet Lulin, but other objects in the Jan / Feb 2009 Northern hemisphere, such as Regulus and Polaris. Theres also some useful information on Lulin over at [...]