This comet will be well placed for our Pinnacles Class Astro 27. The comet should be bright, maybe 3rd magnitude? Or brighter? As of Apr 8, it's at 5th magnitude as Spaceweather.com reports it. Here's a photo from June Lake the morning of April 8.
Future Comet Visibilities page has a sky chart and plot of recent brightness estimates.
Astro 27 Plans:
Saturday morning from camp, looking due East over San Benito Mountain, the comet will be 9 degrees above the horizon, with tail pointing up and to the right, and the comet just a degree or two above the bottom star in the Great Square of Pegasus. A reasonably wide angle lens should be able to capture the comet and also the Andromeda Galaxy to the comet's upper left. The sun at 5:30am will be -12 degrees, which is the beginning of Civil Twilight. The glow of the sun will be faintly visible, but the stars will still be quite well shown.
The Comet here at 5:30am on Saturday morning April 18 is 10 degrees up with the sun at -12 degrees. Mercury and Mars and Saturn are in a tight group just coming above the horizon. Note too that on Saturday evening as we're eating dinner, the crescent moon and Venus will be only 5 degrees apart, setting in the west above the distant mountain horizon. |
Sunday morning, April 19, the comet will be brighter, and 8 degees up when the sun is -12 degrees, and just 3 degrees lower left of Algenib. The tail should be going just left of of Albgenib and should make a nice picture. Andromeda Galaxy about 30 degrees above left of the comet. Mercury and Saturn and Mars will bein a tight triangle only 2 degrees across, rising later, as twilight advances.
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Comet R3 PANSTARRS will not transition to the evening sky until early May, when it may be beginning to fade, but perhaps have a good tail from the evaporation of its April 19 closest approach to the sun. The moon will be in the evening sky by then, making photography a bit more of a challenge, and the comet will be low in the sky with the sunlight glow still visible. It's not a favorable orbit for northern hemisphere observers, unfortunately. But the comet is brightening faster than predicted and could be much brighter than the nominal prediction of 3rd or 4th magnitude, which is faintly naked eye visible.
For Astro 27 we will bring binoculars for better viewing of the comet and tail too.
