The Ultimate Guide to Observing Comets

Comets are among the most spectacular and mysterious objects in our skies. These visitors from the far reaches of the Solar System have intrigued humans for thousands of years. Comets were once considered omens of disaster or messengers from the gods bearing bad news. It's easy to see why ancient peoples feared them. A comet could appear suddenly without warning, grow in size, eventually form a glowing nucleus and a formidable tail, and remain visible for several weeks before fading and heading back into the abyss. In those days, the sky was dark and pristine without artificial light pollution. So, comets—especially the brighter ones—lit up the sky in all their wondrous glory, making them even more intimidating.

Today, astronomers have a better understanding of comets. Comets no longer instill fear but generate excitement and opportunities for people to observe, photograph, and study these beautiful celestial visitors. Comets are now one of the most sought-after objects for sky-watchers whenever they appear—especially when they are bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from the city. With the next "ghostly wanderer" on its way for a possible beginning-of-year encounter with the Sun, now is a good time to learn more about comets and how to observe them.

What are comets?

Comets are a mixture of frozen gases, dust, rock, and water ice. Some planetary scientists believe they may be leftovers from materials that formed the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago.

They are relatively small objects that travel through space in highly elliptical orbits that resemble a long, fat cigar. Comets are pulled in faster as they move closer to the Sun, then slingshot around its backside before heading back into space. Some comets plunge into Sun while others break up entirely during this close encounter.

Scientists often describe comets as "dirty snowballs" due to their composition. As comets heat up from the Sun's energy, their nucleus spews volatile materials such as dust and gas, which sublimate and escape (outgassing). This gives comets their signature appearance of a glowing coma with dust and gas (ion) tails pointing away from the Sun. These two tails can stretch in space for over 620,000 miles (1 million km).

Because comets are known to contain water ice, some believe comets may have originally brought some water and organic molecules to Earth, but not enough of it to fill Earth's oceans. Asteroids, composed of rock and metal, are much larger than comets and are also known to suppress water ice, so perhaps water-rich asteroids and comets contributed to making regular water deliveries when they impacted Earth during its infancy.

How do comets originate?

Comets spend most of their orbital journeys at great distances from the Sun in the far reaches of the Solar System. They are believed to originate primarily from two regions: the Kuiper Belt and the theorized Oort Cloud. The Kuiper Belt, named after Gerard Kuiper, a Dutch-born astronomer, is a ring-shaped region beyond Neptune's orbit where many asteroids, comets, and other smaller bodies of icy material reside. It's believed that short-period comets that orbit the Sun at least every 200 years are Kuiper Belt objects.

The second region, called the Oort Cloud, is farther out from the Kuiper Belt (up to 100,000 astronomical units from the Sun). It's envisioned as a spherical shell of icy matter, rock, and dust. The Oort Cloud is named after Danish astronomer Jan Oort, who proposed that comets reside in a huge cloud far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Long-period comets that take more than 200 years to orbit the Sun are believed to come from the Oort Cloud, which may contain trillions of comets. The Oort Cloud's existence has not yet been proven.  

Parts of a Comet

How to Observe Comets

• Check the Internet, an astronomy magazine, sky reports, or astronomy apps, like Celestron's SkyPortal (included with any Celestron telescope purchase), to learn where and when you can see the next bright comet. Don't forget to share the information with your friends and family!
• When the time is right, travel to a remote location and let your eyes adapt to the darkness for at least an hour. Fainter objects like comets and their tails will be easier to locate with your eyes fully adjusted. This technique is called dark adaptation.
• Find a clear view of the horizon where the comet is predicted to be. Avoid areas obstructed by buildings, trees, or hills. An open field or even a rooftop will give you a nice view.
• Because some comets are faint, fuzzy blobs, observe them using the averted vision technique. Instead of looking directly at the comet, look off to the side about 20 degrees to expose your eye's most sensitive parts, the rods, and cones, to the light coming from the comet. You will have a better chance of "seeing" the comet than using direct vision.
• A binocular like Celestron's Cometron 7x50 is perfect for scanning the sky with its large light-gathering 50mm objective lenses. Binoculars can help you locate a comet in the sky and provide a wide-angle view of its impressive tail.

• Telescopes offer even more light-gathering ability and increased power to help magnify a comet's coma and pull in additional detail. Medium to high magnification will provide great views of the coma if conditions are favorable.
  
  On the other hand, if you'd like to view more of the comet at once, a wide-field refractor telescope, like the Inspire 100AZ, is a great choice. This type of telescope paired with lower to medium magnification eyepieces can reveal more of the comet's tail without needing to move the telescope.

Click on this link to see the full lineup of Celestron telescope models.

Notable Comets

	Halley's comet (1P/Halley) Perhaps the most famous comet of all time, Halley's Comet, is a periodic comet that returns to Earth's vicinity every 75 to 76 years. Due to its relatively brief orbital period, some can view the comet twice in a lifetime. English astronomer Edmond Halley concluded that the comet observed in 1531, 1607, and 1682 was the same. He predicted the comet would appear again in 1758. Although he didn't live long enough to see it, the comet appeared just as he predicted. Because of his discovery, the comet was named after him. After a dazzling performance in 1910, expectations were high for Halley's 1986 appearance. Unfortunately, on this pass, the comet was much farther away from the Sun and appeared fainter, much to the public's disappointment. However, during this approach, the European robotic spacecraft, Giotto, flew by Halley's Comet (within 370 miles of its nucleus) to study it up close and returned some amazing images. Halley's comet is predicted to return in 2061.
	Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) Comet Hale-Bopp is the best-known and most widely seen bright comet of the latter half of the 20th century. Named after its co-discoverers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, who observed the comet separately around the same time in the summer of 1995, Comet Hale-Bopp put on a spectacular show in early 1997 as it was bright enough to be seen from the city. Multiple jets spewed dust and gas from its nucleus, which appeared to be "rotating" when seen through a telescope. Millions upon millions of people around the world witnessed the Great Comet of 1997. It will return to Earth's vicinity again in 4385, so mark your calendars!
	Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) The "opening act" for Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1996, was discovered by amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake in the darker skies of southern Japan. He used a powerful set of binoculars with 6" objective lenses to scan the skies on the night of his discovery. This comet was visible to the naked eye by late February 1996 and remained visible to the naked eye for three months. Comet Hyakutake's tail became spectacular later in March when it developed a long blue ion tail that stretched out more than 100 degrees across the sky and a white dust tail that was shorter but wider. The comet became six times as bright as a first-magnitude star when it passed Earth at a mere 0.1 astronomical unit. It is not predicted to return to the inner Solar System again for approximately 70,000 years.
	Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (D/1993 F2) Discovered by Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker and David Levy in a photograph taken in 1993 with the 0.4-meter Schmidt telescope at Mt. Palomar, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet captured by Jupiter's gravity. The gas giant's gravitational pull broke the comet into at least 20 pieces, which subsequently slammed into Jupiter like a freight train. In July 1994, a string of fragments labeled A through W impacted Jupiter's cloud tops with the force of 300 million atomic bombs, causing Jupiter to appear as having "black eyes." Earth-based observatories and spacecraft, including Hubble Space Telescope, Ulysses, and Voyager 2, studied the historical impact and its aftermath.
	Comet Ikeya-Seki (C/1965 S1, 1965 VIII, and 1965f) One of the brightest and most fabulous naked-eye comets to be discovered in the 20th century was found on the morning of September 19, 1965. Two amateur astronomers, Kaoru Ikeya and Tsutomu Seki of Japan, separately discovered this very bright comet that managed to escape detection until it was less than 100 million miles from the Sun. Comet Ikeya-Seki will be remembered for coming out of nowhere and putting on a memorable show in the early morning twilight sky. Skywatchers described the comet as being ten times brighter than the full Moon!
	Comet West (C/1975 V1, 1976 VI, and 1975n) Discovered in late 1975 by Danish astronomer Richard West from photographs taken at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, Comet West was a great comet of the 1970s. It had a spectacular coma and structured tail that resembled "a fantastic fountain of light."  The comet developed into a beautiful object in the morning sky during March 1976 for Northern Hemisphere observers. Some observers reported Comet West was bright enough to be seen in full daylight. Although Comet West put on a fine display, the mainstream media did not give comet much publicity due to the hype of Comet Kohoutek two years before, which turned out to be a major "dud." As a result, most of the public was unaware of the comet and missed out on seeing it.
	Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) Discovered by astronomer Robert McNaught at Australia's Siding Spring Observatory in 2006, this comet became known as the Great Comet of 2007. It became a spectacular comet as it traveled past the Sun in January 2007 at just 15.9 million miles. Comet McNaught developed a very large, curving, fan-shaped dust tail. According to new data, it's the largest comet measured to date! It was also one of the few bright comets that were bright enough (magnitude -5.1) to be visible in broad daylight for favorably placed observers. Unfortunately, those in the Northern Hemisphere were out of luck as the best views of Comet McNaught were seen south of the equator.
	Comet PanStarrs (C/2011 L4)    Discovered in June 2011, Comet PanStarrs was the fourth new comet detected during the first half of June and received the designation C/2011 L4. Researchers first spotted the comet on images taken through the 1.8-meter Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System on Haleakala on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Because a large team of astronomers and scientists were involved, PanStarrs (C/2011 L4)was named after the telescope instead of the people involved. It received the instrument's acronym, "PANSTARRS." The comet peaked around magnitude –1 and put on a nice show after sunset. Comet PanStarrs (C/2011 L4) paired up nicely with a thin waxing crescent Moon in the darkening twilight sky on Mach 13, 2013, and made for a picturesque photo opportunity for astroimagers.
	Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) Comet ISON will be remembered for not being the spectacular Thanksgiving comet of 2013! It was quite a letdown for millions around the world. On the morning of November 28, expectations were at an all-time high as Comet ISON reached perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). As it rounded the Sun, observers held their breath, watching live images taken from several orbiting solar observatories. The hopes were high that an already good comet would morph into a great one. ISON disappeared behind the Sun and finally re-emerged as a fan-shaped comet, giving everyone false hope. Then, ISON quickly began to fade and reality set in that the comet had been vaporized in a cloud of dust.
	Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) Comet NEOWISE was first spotted by NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission in March 2020. It is one of the more recent comets that came about unexpectedly and put on a fine display for sky-watchers during the summer of 2020. While it wasn't a great comet like Comet Hale-Bopp was 23 years earlier, it was still a binocular and naked-eye comet that came within 64 million miles of Earth. Comet NEOWISE made its closest approach to Earth on July 22, and images showed a classic white dust tail and thinner blue ion tail. As the days went by, the comet grew dimmer as it went back into the Solar System. Due to the global pandemic, many sky-watchers who quarantined at home could get some reprieve from life's unexpected challenges and enjoy observing a rare comet visitor. Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is predicted to return in about 6,800 years.
	Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) Astronomer Greg Leonard discovered Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) near the orbit of Jupiter on the morning of January 3, 2021, at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona. Comet Leonard sped toward the inner Solar System as astronomers predicted it could be the brightest Comet of 2021. Sadly, it disintegrated or evaporated during perihelion, the closest approach to the Sun, about a year after it was discovered—losing two of its most important components—its nucleus and coma. Comet Leonard will be remembered as the brightest comet of 2021, but it fizzled out. Comets are notoriously difficult to predict, and their behavior can stump scientists.

The Next Naked-Eye Comet?

On March 2, 2022, astronomers using the 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin robotic telescope, part of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at Mt. Palomar, California, discovered a new comet in the constellation Aquila. They named it C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and calculated its distance at 398 million miles away, with an apparent magnitude of 17.3. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a long-period comet whose orbit takes more than 200 years to complete.

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is now in the constellation Corona Borealis, and will gradually brighten as it makes its way closer to the inner Solar System. However, it is still very dim and challenging to see without a large telescope. In mid-November, the comet began making a slow loop that will take it on a path into Boötes, Draco, and Ursa Minor. The comet will reach perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, on January 13, 2023. By mid-January, the comet will become circumpolar. On  January 29, it will be located 10° from Polaris and come closest to Earth on February 2, 2023, at 27 million miles.

Astronomers are predicting that this comet should become visible in telescopes and binoculars. If luck is on our side, it may brighten significantly, bringing it within range of naked-eye visibility as it traverses the faint circumpolar constellation Camelopardalis. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) may be the next bright comet visible to the naked eye since comet NEOWISE in 2020.

The easiest way to help locate C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is to use the free Celestron SkyPortal app available for download in the App Store for iOS or Google Play for Android.

Comet Fast Facts

• Comets are significant to scientists because they are primitive bodies left over from the formation of the Solar System.
• Scientists believe comets originate in two regions—the Kuiper Belt and the theorized Oort Cloud.
• Comets are often called "dirty snowballs" as they are composed of a mixture of frozen gases (water-based, dry ice, carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia), dust, rocks, and water ice.
• Comets orbit the Sun in elliptical paths but are far more elliptical than planets' paths.
• A comet has four components: a nucleus, a coma, a dust tail, and an ion tail.
• A comet's dust tail appears white or yellowish in color and curves slightly due to its motion and gravity, while its ion tail is usually thinner and glows blue.
• A comet's nucleus contains the vast majority of its total mass.
• If a comet's coma contains carbon-nitrogen and carbon-carbon bonds, The Sun's ultraviolet light will energize the electrons inside of it, causing it to glow green.
• Because comets are known to contain water ice, it's believed comets may have originally brought some water to Earth, but not enough to fill Earth's oceans.
• Comets are named after their discovere­­­­rs or investigators. Their names can be a person's last name, such as Halley's Comet and Comet Hale-Bopp. Or they can be named after an observatory/telescope/mission used in the discovery, like Comet NEOWISE.
• A comet can be named after up to three discoverers. The discoverers may work together as a team or make the discovery independently at around the same time.
• The most famous Comet is Halley's Comet. It has been observed since at least 240 B.C. Its orbit makes it visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. It was named after the British astronomer Edmond Halley. Halley's comet was last seen in 1986 and is predicted to return in 2061.
• One "great" comet (visible to the naked eye) occurs approximately every ten years.
• It is notoriously difficult to predict how bright a comet will become. Comet Kohoutek (C/1973 E1) in 1973 and Comet ISON C/2012 S1 in 2013 were touted as the "Comet of the Century" only to fade away and disappoint the public.
• There are over 3,000 currently known comets (depending on who you ask), but scientists believe that may be up to one billion comets in our solar system.
• Scientists believe a comet's lifespan may only be a few thousand years due to the amount of "shedding" or vaporizing of materials each time a comet comes close to the Sun.
• When Earth passes through the tail of comets that have already passed by, the dust left behind can burn up in the sky, causing a meteor shower.
• Comets travel about 2,000 miles per hour when far away from the Sun. However, as they move closer to the Sun, their speed increases and can reach over 100,000 miles per hour!
• NASA's Stardust spacecraft encountered Comet 81P/Wild in January 2004 and collected dust grains sent through the comet's coma. The collector looked like a tennis racket made of silica aerogel exposed to the dust. The samples were collected, sealed, and jettisoned back to Earth for analysis in January 2006.
• Despite a comet's incredible speed, it doesn't zip across the sky like a meteor or shooting star due to its extremely far distance from Earth. You can tell a comet has moved by comparing its position in the sky the following day/night.
• Comets can strike Earth. The last time one did was approximately 28 million years ago.
• Comets move in highly eccentric orbits around the Sun, which means they can appear from any sky direction and put on a short- or long-term display.

Helpful Observing Hints

Final Thoughts

Any word of a potential naked-eye comet heading toward our solar system is good news. There's already some excitement beginning to buzz on the arrival of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). If it does brighten significantly and put on a good show, it will make for an unforgettable post-holiday treat and a great start to 2023. While this is good news, comets are notorious for failing to live up to expectations. However, the odds are in our favor that we will see another spectacular comet again in our lifetime, whether it's C/2022 E3 (ZTF) or yet another undiscovered comet moving quietly toward our inner Solar System. Let's hope C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will treat sky gazers to a great view as we settle into 2023.

Clear skies!

Other articles you might be interested in: Ultimate Guide to Observing the Universe