How to find comets?

[originaltrilogy]

I see nice photos of comets in photography section. Wonderful!

How do you find where to look for comets and what comets are visible now?

[stardust steve]

Hi. If you have skysafari on your tablet or phone, that can be a good mobile help. Otherwise Stellarium on the pc is a good free program aswell. Stellarium will need to have the Comets loaded into it but in skysafari, they will be there. The big three at the moment are c/2012 K5 Linear. C/2012 f6 Lemmon and c/2011 L4 Panstarrs. Enter that into the search bar of the program/app ( ie C/2012 K5 Linear) the result will show where it is currently located and then fast forward the time to when it rises high enough. Around midnight is good for k5 and f6 and l4 is a predawn low horizon comet currently. I find the best way is to star hop your way, recognising bright stars, constellations and planets and going from there. You can enter the RA and DEC into your goto if you have one. I like to see what patterns the smaller stars make by looking at the programs then finding them first with a wider angle ep. I have not done much visually, I like to image them. I have heard k4 is visible in a 4 " refractor under dark skies.
Here is a link on how to add the comets into Stellarium
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-700-0-0-1-0.html
Hope this info helps:)

[Liz]

This is also a great site that I check regularly - tells you whats out there, what mag, whether its fading or brightening, with finder charts. :thumbsup:

http://cometchasing.skyhound.com/

As Stephen says, there are 3 out there at the moment, under mag 10. K5 is fading but still pretty easy, but the other 2 are brightening so you will have a good chance to see them. They will look like fuzzy spots at the moment but as they become closer a tail may be spotted.

Good luck!! :)

[Merlin66]

The link Liz gave is the best around for known comets.
You can also download the latest comet details into Cartes du Ciel and display the path on the maps. ( It also does asteroids!)

[originaltrilogy]

Thank you so much! I have never seen comets yet.

[dannat]

keep in mind they wont look like what you see in the pictures, eg K5 linear which is coming into taurus now is fairly dim

[Shark Bait]

Really good information on this website Liz. Thanks for the link.

[mozzie]

thanks for the link liz...will be well used

[brian nordstrom]

:DPtr, the best and only way to find comets is in last rays of the setting sun ,,, and the begining rays in the morning , are the best 2 times.
comets are at their brightest close to the sun .
I re-discovered one once , made me proud .
Brian.

[garin]

I found this site to be great for comets visible to Australian observers http://members.westnet.com.au/mmatti/sc.htm