So You Want To Find Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy And You Don't Know How To?
Welcome to our second Christmas comet!
Q2 Lovejoy has now become the brightest comet in our sky this year!
Thank you Terry- you're spoiling us rotten!
I saw this in my binoculars last night and it's big and bright, and very hard to miss- it's not even a challenge. You can't go wrong using the easy guide stars in my guide below.
Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy has undergone a rapid brightening. During this time, the comet was originally predicted to be at magnitude 6 and eventually set to brighten in late December/early January to magnitude 5.
But now since it's brightened by a whole magnitude, now sitting around magnitude 5, it's quite likely it will reach 4th magnitude.
There have been reports of people spotting it just within naked eye visibility from a dark site appearing as a small fuzzy patch.
It's currently in Puppis, making its way into Columba on the 17th, onto Lepus and then Eridanus on the January 2nd. It will pass closest to Earth on January 7th at a distance of 0.47 au (44 million miles/70 million km).
Here is my eazy peezy quick star hop to view comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy over the next week. All you will need is a pair of binoculars.
From December 16th to the 18th, both the comet and our guide star nu Puppis should be in the same field of view in binoculars making it a very easy catch!
From the 19th, the comet will only be 6 degrees away from nu so a pair of 7x50 binoculars I think should show a 6 degree field of view or thereabouts. My 10x40's with a 4 degree field of view grabs them both easily at the moment.
You can use nu Puppis as your guide until December 18th as it’s the brightest star closest to the comet till then.
After that, it's Kappa Columbae.
On December 23rd your new guide star will be the yellow star Wazn in Columba, just a tad brighter than nu Puppis.
So Let's Begin .......
The screen grab is a simulation of the view from Brisbane at 9.30pm, December 16th.
Start looking around 10pm. For me here in Brisbane, at 9.30pm the comet is a nice 49 degrees above my horizon.
Look towards the south east.
If you look after midnight, you will need to look south and by then the comet will appear even higher in the sky.
The brightest star in the south east is Canopus. This is your first guide star.
The next star you want is nu Puppis. It’s the bright star to the left of Canopus about 15 degrees away.
Measure this distance by using your hand held at arm’s length with one eye closed. Fold down all your fingers with the exception of your forefinger and little finger (see illustration below). Place your forefinger over Canopus and your little finger will land on nu Puppis. The comet is around 4 degrees away (width of 3 fingers held up as before) and you should catch both nu Puppis and the comet in the same field of view of your binoculars.
So now that you know where the comet is, get those binoculars out.
Make sure they’re focused. Line up nu Puppis on the bridge of the binoculars.
Now bring your eyes to the binocular. You should have nu Puppis within your view.
Scan around just a tad. Keeping nu Puppis in the view of your binocular as your guide.
The comet will appear as a large round fuzzy patch. It’s doubtful you will see a tail, but maybe from a dark site you might have some luck spotting a bit of it.
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While you’re in the constellation of Puppis, did you notice how much dazzling star beauty there is there? It’s filled with star clusters and loads to see. Make a night of it and use my list of goodies to explore this area. Some objects within the list are for binocular observing, and there’s also some nice challenges for people who own larger aperture telescopes.
Exploring Puppis- Come and take a trip with me!
Here's some useful links to help guide you further:
Astroblog has got binocular maps & sky simulations.
Sky & Telescope is loaded with help as well including finder charts.
How to measure the sky using your hand:
A widefield image captured by IceInSpace member Grahame Kelaher.
You can clearly see here the main stars required for the star hop to the comet. Far right is Canopus, then towards the middle of the image is the comet showing a greenish colour. And the star nu Puppis smack in the middle of them both.
(The bright star on the far left is Sirius in Canis Major and M41 is spotted close to it).
