Comet watch heats up as A6 Lemmon will get brighter. Right here’s find out how to see it

A 12 months in the past, the D.C. area was enthralled with Comet A3 adorning our skies.

We now have one other comet, C/2025 A6 Lemmon, that’s probably turning into shiny sufficient to be seen to the bare eye within the coming days. It has been a wonderful view in a telescope and/or binoculars since its discovery in January, with the previous couple of weeks getting even higher.

Comets are leftover debris from the formation of our solar system and they’re continually on the prowl within the photo voltaic system at any given time.

As defined by NASA:

“Each comet has a frozen part, called a nucleus, often a few miles across. The nucleus contains icy chunks, frozen gases with bits of embedded dust. A comet warms up as it nears the Sun and develops an atmosphere, or coma. The Sun’s heat causes the comet’s ices to change to gases so the coma gets larger. The coma may extend hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The pressure of sunlight and high-speed solar particles (solar wind) can blow the coma dust and gas away from the Sun, sometimes forming a long, bright tail. Comets actually have two tails — a dust tail and an ion (gas) tail.”

It has been 5 years because the Northern Hemisphere had a extremely shiny and exquisite comet to see, which was Comet NEOWISE.

Sky watchers can now begin on the lookout for Lemmon about 90 minutes earlier than daybreak and beginning Thursday, it might be seen within the predawn and post-sunset darkish skies. Refer to the star charts on EarthSky’s web site to assist discover the comet.

Try to search out the darkest skies you’ll be able to for predawn and after it will get darkish following sundown, together with good horizon views which might be freed from bushes and tall buildings.

Check the climate for clear or partly cloudy skies, which can hopefully give us an opportunity to see Comet Lemmon.

If predictions maintain true (comets are notoriously troublesome to foretell their habits, identical to cats), the comet will get brighter and simpler to see within the October days to return and even probably in November.

If you’ve a telescope or binoculars, I extremely advocate you employ them to enhance your view and really see some particulars within the coma, nucleus and tail of Comet Lemmon.

Use your smartphone or digicam to {photograph} Comet Lemmon utilizing the suitable publicity and picture composition. Your finest wager is to make use of a tripod to take a picture and see the way it seems and make the required corrections, then take one other shot.

And guess what?

We have two different comets which might be capturing our consideration: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, solely the third such object ever seen thus far, and comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN).

As for 3I/ATLAS, it would seemingly stay seen solely by means of a telescope, or maybe binoculars; whereas C/2025 R2 (SWAN) is brightening however is a troublesome sighting for Northern Hemisphere observers because of its low altitude within the west after it will get darkish.

Comet SWAN can be getting greater within the sky every day. Check this link for daily star charts.

And WTOP highlights essentially the most noteworthy sky sights every month within the characteristic “What’s Up in the Sky?”

Good luck and clear skies!

Follow Greg Redfern on his daily blog to maintain up with the newest information in astronomy and area exploration.

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