Get ready for Comet Lovejoy!
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Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) seen here on the border of constellations
Columba and Lepus, late December 2014. Image credit: Paul Stewart
of Timaru, New Zealand using a WO FLT 132 refractor with 0.8x
reducer/flattener and a QSI 583wsg camera. Licensed under CC
Those of you who received a pair of binoculars or a telescope for Christmas hoping that something interesting and unusual to view might come along have just had your prayers answered, for it’s now open season for C/2014 Q2 — better known as simply Comet Lovejoy — set to become the first bright and hopefully naked-eye comet of 2015. The fifth comet discovery of Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy using an 8-inch wide-field telescope on 17th August 2014, it quickly became apparent that this was a long-period comet, but not its first visit to the Sun.
C/2014
Q2 (Lovejoy) had an orbital period of ~11500 years prior
to entering the inner Solar System where planetary perturbations
to entering the inner Solar System where planetary perturbations
have now reduced it
to ~8000 years. The comet passes closest
to the Earth on 7th January
2015 when it will be about its brightest.
Perihelion (closest to the
Sun) occurs on 30th January 2015. Click
the graphic to open an
interactive Java applet. Image credit: NASA
JPL Small-Body Database
Browser/Osamu Ajiki/Ron Baalke/Ade
Ashford With a high orbital
inclination of 80°, Comet Lovejoy is
approaching the ecliptic from below
which has favoured Southern
Hemisphere observers until now, but that’s
all about to change as
the comet rapidly heads north.
As 2014 draws to a close, C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy is already shining at magnitude
+5 and lies in theconstellation of Lepus the Hare, culminating at an altitude of
about 15° by 10:30 pm for UK-based observers — but conditions are set to
improve rapidly as it heads north
at a rate of about 2° per day.
Image credit: AN graphic by Greg
Smye-Rumsby
The waxing gibbous Moon is currently interfering with observation of the comet, but binocular observers with an unobstructed view of a southern horizon that’s also free of light pollution should scan southern Lepus about 15° below Rigel in Orion around 10:30 pm to stand a good chance of viewing the diffuse puffball glow of C/2014 Q2. Currently at magnitude +5 (or brighter) it should still be obvious in moonlight, particularly in a telescope. While numerous astroimages show Comet Lovejoy sporting a thin ion tail about 5° long, the visual impression is that of a slightly asymmetric ball concentrated towards the centre. That was how it appeared in my 10×50 binoculars at 10 pm GMT on 29th December.
As the nights pass, Comet Lovejoy heads north-northwest, passing into
the constellation of Eridanus in early January. By the night of Full
Moon on 5th January, the comet will be 11° directly west (right) of
Rigel, much higher in the sky and easily identifiable despite the Moon’s
glow in Gemini.
Comet Lovejoy at its best
With the waning gibbous Moon (you can check the rise/set times with our Almanac)
comes the best part of this cometary apparition. C/2014 Q2 makes its
closest approach to the Earth on 7th January 2015 at 0.469 Astronomical
Units (43.6 million miles; 70.2 million kilometres).
Comet Lovejoy crosses the celestial equator on 9th January 2015 and
moves into Taurus — hopefully a comfortable naked-eye object by now —
before passing into Aries on January 16th. A nice wide-angle astrophoto
opportunity occurs on January 18th when C/2014 Q2 passes about 9° from
the Pleiades.
With New Moon occurring on 20th January we have to be mindful of the
returning lunar glow and Comet Lovejoy moves into the constellation of
Triangulum on the 25th. The comet reaches perihelion on 30th January
2015 at a distance of 1.29 AU (120 million miles; 193 million
kilometres) from the Sun, by which time we will see C/2014 Q2 heading
for a close conjunction with beautiful double star Almach (gamma Andromedae) on 4th February.
For observers with equatorially-mounted telescopes or GoTo
instruments, the table below lists the daily J2000 Epoch coordinates of
right ascension (R.A.) and declination (Decl.) for Comet Lovejoy at Oh UT throughout the brightest part of the comet’s visibility. The column labelled Delta is the comet’s distance from the Earth in Astronomical Units (1 AU = 92.9 million miles or 149.6 million kilometres), while r is the comet’s distance from the Sun, also in AU
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