This article was amended on 24 January 2023 to remove a mention of the comet’s dusty tail stretching “behind” it. While the best views may be had about 1 and 2 February, by the middle of the month the comet will have dimmed again and slipped from view as it hurtles back out into the solar system on its return trip to the Oort cloud. The window for spotting the comet does not stay open long. This list is updated with new information several times per day. Please cite COBS as the reference if you use it for comet studies. This page provides a comprehensive list of the bright comets currently visible in the sky. The data stored in COBS is freely available to everyone who honors our data usage policy. It is heading for a fly-by of the pole star, the brightest star in Ursa Minor, next week. The database currently contains more than 266700 comet observations of more than 1520 different comets and represents the largest available database of comet observations. This program enables you to draw sky charts, making use of the data in 16 catalogs of stars and nebulae. It is visible in the northern hemisphere, clouds permitting, as the sky darkens in the evening, below and to the left of the handle of the Plough constellation. Since mid-January, the comet has been easier to spot with a telescope or binoculars. Astronomers armed with telescopes have captured stunning pictures of the comet in the past month, showing the body’s head, dust tail and the longer, more tenuous ion tail.īut the cosmic ice ball has recently become bright enough to see with the naked eye, at least in very dark, rural areas with minimal light pollution.
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