April 1, 2020 – ALPO Comet News for April 2020
Much has changed since over the past month, not only with the state of the world, but with comets. C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) has asserted itself as the comet of the moment. Currently between 7th and 8th magnitude as April begins, the comet may become a borderline naked eye object under dark skies by the end of the month. It will be interesting to watch how it develops.
C/2019 Y4 isn’t the only object of interest. Both C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) and C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS) are brighter than 10th magnitude and CCD and large aperture visual observers are encouraged to watch fainter comets 88P/Howell, 210P/Christensen, 249P/LINEAR, and C/2019 U6 (Lemmon).
The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/700215-alpo-comet-news-for-april-2020/). All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.
- Carl Hergenrother
