Comet 46P/Wirtanen

[2hats]

Comet 46P/Wirtanen is arriving on our planetary doorstep and will approach to within about 11.5 million km of Earth on 16 December this month. It’s a small comet (nucleus maybe only around 1km) and will probably only get up to a diffuse magnitude +3 to +4 but would make for at least an interesting small ‘scope, binoculars or camera target in a decent dark sky (possibly noticeable naked eye object in really favourable conditions - angular extent comparable to the full moon). Apparently it is a quite distinctive green:

(This image taken within the last 24 hours).

Visible in northern skies all this month:

More from Sky&Telescope.

PS: 46P/Wirtanen was considered as a target option for Rosetta/Philae.

 

[editor]

Cheers for the post. Love this stuff!

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I miss comets - I loved Hale-Boppe.

 

[Signal 11]

I got a shot of it with just the camera tonight while doing Geminid meteor watch. It was fairly easy to see in 10x50 binoculars - just a blob with no colour though.



(50mm lens, f/2.8, exposure 5 seconds at ISO 3200)

 

[StoneRoad]

Although I got some of the brighter Geminids last night, unfortunately, my distance eyesight isn't up to this sort of skywatching now*. And it was bliddy cold outside at 23:00 or thereabouts, so I was only out for a few minutes. OH spent longer and reckoned an average spot rate of 1 per minute for the brighter ones.

*I'll just "drool" over the various images, I'm still fascinated by the subject.