Webmaster © Paul L Money 2012
Binocular Comets for 2012
Comets are notoriously difficult to predict how bright they may become
however 2012 has one definite binocular comet and one that seems to have vanished,
Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd and Comet P/2006 T1 Levy. Comet Levy has not been recovered
which confirms how difficult it is when originally writing about these things so
far in advance for the printed version of Nightscenes (August-
As I write this section for the web site the Southern Hemisphere has had a spectacular naked eye comet with Comet Lovejoy, a comet that passed extremely close to the sun and was expected to be destroyed. It survived and moved into the dawn sky for our Southern Hemisphere friends and it shows that you can never tell if we might also be lucky in 2012 and have one that gets flung into the Northern Hemisphere sky for us to enjoy. In the meantime though we do have Comet Garrodd to enjoy!
At the time of writing Nightscenes
2012 (Sept 2011) Comet Garradd was putting on
a reasonable showing in both binoculars and telescopes. The view seen here at left
was taken by the author on Sept 2nd 2011 when the comet was close to the Coathanger
cluster. During January and February the comet gradually improved and became circumpolar
and so visible all night. 
Over the nights of Feb 2nd -
By then it was around magnitude 7 -
It rapidly passes through Draco, dipping into Ursa Minor and back into Draco before passing into Ursa Major in late March and by April 15th it will have faded to around 8.4 magnitude. It continues to be visible but will start to need a telescope as it passes through Lynx into Cancer by mid May and at mag 9.5 will no longer be an easy binocular target and will require a telescope to follow it further.