Comet Leonard spent the first few weeks of December, seen as the target audience for telescopes and telescopes in the morning sky before sunrise. Now, however, the viewing area has changed and the newly discovered Comet Leonard (listed as C / 2021 A1) has passed into the evening sky, visible below the southwest atmosphere about an hour or more after sunset. And tonight (Dec. 17), you can use one of the celestial lights to find it: Venus.
At the beginning of December, the light of Comet Leonard was traveling at a magnitude of +6.3 on the light scale used by astronomers. This figure is based on the average number of reports worldwide sent to the Comet Monitoring Website. A magnitude of +6.3 would make Comet Leonard appear bright enough to be seen with the normal eye by spectators under the dark sky, although those with poor visual acuity could easily see a comet with the help of a telescope and know where to look accurately using a beautiful star chart.
Here are our recommendations for binoculars and binoculars to see Comet Leonard. If you want to prepare for the next comet or night sighting in the night of 2022, check out our guide for the best-televised deals and telescope deals available now. Our guidelines for the best astrophotography cameras and the best astrophotography lenses can also help ensure you are ready to shoot the night sky.
A quick rise in light
A few weeks ago, as Comet Leonard approached the sun and Earth, it shone brightly. The comet passed very close to Earth on Monday at a distance of 21.7 million miles (34.9 million km) and now shines at +3.9 - a nine-fold increase in light from the beginning of the moon, which easily puts it in the distance of the normal eye.
Still, it can be difficult to spot a comet for a number of reasons. First and foremost is its current placement in the sky, which sets it against a dark background illuminated by the evening gloom. Second, there is the presence of a nearly full moon that rises in the east, adding its brightness to illuminate the evening sky.
Venus as a benchmark for making a vision
However, the comet will have your assistant in helping you to see it, in the form of the glorious planet Venus.
At present, the bright “evening star” is readily visible in the southwest sky shortly after sunset. And on Friday evening, walking 5 degrees straight down will be Comet Leonard.
Since your folded fist held at arm's length is approximately 10 degrees wide, the comet will be suspended about one-half the width of the fist below Venus.
Binoculars will benefit
We suggest that you wait at least an hour after sundown to hunt down Comet Leonard. First, find Venus, and explore the sky beneath it and see if you can check the comet. What you are looking for is not a sharp point of star-like light, but a small obscure area of light, perhaps with a short tail pointing upward from the horizon to the normal side of Venus.
If you cannot see a comet with your own eyes, scan the sky under Venus with binoculars. You should probably take it by then ... and a small telescope will highlight the view of the head of a winding star (called a coma) and its tail. If the weather is cloudy on Friday, you can try to use Venus to find a comet on Saturday evening, although it will no longer be under Venus but will have shifted to its left position below.
The comet Leonard is about to begin to fade and will soon be out of sight, reaching its peak near the sun on Jan. 3 over a distance of 57.2 million kilometers (92 million km), and when orbiting the sun it will be cast. Out of the solar system into a slightly hyperbolic pathway, never to be seen again.
It is brighter than most
All in all, Comet Leonard is far from the spectacle that Comet NOWISE appeared back in the summer of 2020. Leonard is very black, and his tail is much lower than that of NOWISE. However, compared to the mass of comets that pass through the internal solar system, Leonard can still be considered very light; at any time more than half a dozen comets appear to amateur and professional astronomers, but most of them do not grow any visible tail and are usually accessible only to those with moderately large telescopes. Leonard-like star-tailed star, bright enough to be seen with the normal eye, is rarely common, perhaps two or three every 10 to 15 years.
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