November 25, 2015 – January 9, 2016

Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina – When and where to see it

Finder chart for Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina during November 2015 to January 2016. The dates are in Universal Time; the ticks are at 0:00 UT (7:00 p.m. on the previous date EST).From skyandtelescope.com. Used by permission.

Comet photos

Comet Lovejoy photo taken by Darren Shank 1/19/2015

Comets that might become viewable naked-eye or with binoculars in 2015

Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 is projected to be magnitude 4 in January, 5 in February, and 6 in March.

Comet PanSTARRS C/2014 Q1 is projected to be magnitude 6 in June.

Comet Catalina C/2013 US10 is projected to be magnitude 3 in November and December, magnitude 4 January 2015, and magnitude 5 February 2015.

Understanding Apparent Magnitude

The apparent brightness of a celestial body as seen by an observer on Earth.

The human eye begins to see faint stars that have an apparent magnitude of 6.5 Higher numbers are too dim to see without a telescope.

Some examples:

-12.92 Full moon

-2.94 Maximum brightness of Jupiter

-1.61 Minimum brightness of Jupiter

.03 Vega

1.97 Polaris (North Star)

3.44 Andromeda Galaxy

5.72 M33 is a Spiral Galaxy is used as a test for naked eye seeing under dark skies

Visual Comets Coming (Northern Hemisphere) Last updated December 31, 2014

This chart is used by permission of aerith.net.

The h means the highest altitude in that month at latitude 35 degrees in the Northern Hemisphere.

Visual Comets Coming (Southern Hemisphere) Last updated December 31, 2014

This chart is used by permission of aerith.net.

The h means the highest altitude in that month at latitude 35 degrees in the Southern Hemisphere.