Comet Section        

 
 

February 4, 2021 – ALPO Comet News for February 2021

For the second month in a row, no comets are expected to be brighter than 10th magnitude. Hopefully, this changes in March with C/2020 R4 (ATLAS). In the meantime, there are nearly a dozen comets between magnitude 10 and 13 that are good targets for CCD imagers and large aperture visual observers including 88P/Howell, 156P/Russell-LINEAR, 141P/Machholz, C/2019 N1 (ATLAS), C/2020 M3 (ATLAS), C/2021 A2 (NEOWISE), and P/2016 J3 = P/2021 A3 (STEREO).

Recently discovered C/2020 A1 (Leonard) may be a nice object in December. Currently a faint 18-19th magnitude object, CCD imagers are encouraged to monitor it as it brightens.

The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum. All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.

- Carl Hergenrother

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