Comet Lovejoy is still visible up in the skies, but once it disappears, the object will not be spotted again from the Earth for 8,000 years.
The comet can be seen well using just a pair of binoculars, from any location with dark skies. The object can be seen as a fuzzy green patch of light above and to the right of Orion, between the constellations of Perseus and Triangulum.
"Through the rest of January, Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is expected to remain bright enough to be seen through ordinary binoculars in spite of the glow of city lights. It is also visible to the unaided eye from wilderness locations free from artificial lights," astronomers with the Griffith Observatory wrote.
Also known as C/2014 Q2, the comet was discovered by Terry Lovejoy, an astronomer in Australia.
The frozen body made its closest approach to Earth on January 7, at a distance of 44 million miles, roughly 47 percent of the distance between our home world and the Sun. The object will come closest to the Sun on February 1.
As the comet approaches our parent star, material on its surface is heating, forming an atmosphere, stretching half a million miles in diameter. Ionized carbon monoxide, pushed by solar wind, has resulted in a dim blue tail, visible in larger telescopes.
Skygazers will be able to view Lovejoy any night through the end of January, at around 8 or 9 p.m. local time. Binoculars are an ideal instrument to use, in order to provide the highest-quality images possible of the object. Amateur astronomers can find the comet roughly two-thirds of the way above the horizon, a small distance to the right of the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters.
Comet Lovejoy circles the Sun along an orbit inclined 80 degrees to the path followed by the Earth and the other major planets. The orbit followed by the comet carries C/2014 Q2 to a distance of 110 billion miles out to the Kuiper Belt, a collection of frozen bodies orbiting far from the Sun.
Comets are composed of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide, along with ammonia, methane, dust, and other components. The bodies spend much of their time on the outskirts of the solar system, but can be nudged toward the Sun through collisions or the gravitational effects of interstellar objects passing close to our planetary family.
Photographs of C/2014 Q2 taken with backyard telescopes reveal the blue tail streaming away from the bright green head of the comet.
