Comet Lovejoy is now visible to skygazers all over the United States and most of the Northern Hemisphere. The small comet with a greenish hue will be visible from nearly any location with clear skies, away from city lights.
Amateur astronomers can see the comet without the aid of a telescope or binoculars, although a pair of binoculars are ideal for observations.
Orion the Hunter is one of the easiest constellations to find in the night sky. The belt of the figure is seen as three stars, placed together in a straight line. Skygazers can find the constellation of Taurus the Bull just to the right of Orion.
The Pleiades Cluster, a dense grouping of stars also known as the Seven Sisters, can be found a little above and to the right of this constellation. Observers can hold a hand at an arm's length as a measuring instrument. The comet can be found two hand widths beneath the Pleiades, visible as a small green, fuzzy patch of light.
Comet Lovejoy was discovered by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy on Aug. 17, 2014, using a modest eight-inch telescope. This is the fifth such body successfully discovered by the comet hunter.
The comet made its closest approach to Earth on Jan. 7, and will reach its minimum distance to the sun on Jan. 30. The best observations of the comet will last until the third week of January. Following its close encounter with the sun, Comet C/2014 Q2, as the body is known to astronomers, will begin to fade. After racing away from our stellar companion, Comet Lovejoy will not return to the inner solar system for 8,000 years.
"The current Comet Lovejoy is not producing enough dust to create a bright tail -- and in fact this interloper wasn't expected to become so obvious at all. But by late 2014 amateur astronomers had noticed that the comet was brightening steadily and faster than predicted," Alan MacRobert, senior editor of Sky and Telescope, and Kelly Beatty, senior contributing editor of the magazine, wrote in an article detailing the appearance of the comet.
Observers wanting to view the comet should travel away from populated areas, where dark skies will provide the best observations. Binoculars for astronomical use should, ideally, have large objective (main) lenses, allowing the instrument to collect as much light as possible. Just as a wider pipe allows more water to pass through than a smaller tube can, large binoculars gather more light than those with smaller optics.
The moon is presenting some challenges to viewing the comet, but observation should be ideal in early evening.
