New Green Comet Is A Cosmic Christmas Gift

The skies too are beginning to light up for Christmas. You can enjoy this heavenly gift of a sparkling comet, which is a new addition to the solar system after almost 12,000 years. It has a name that is lit up too---Comet Lovejoy, according to Nationalgeographic.com.

It came to light only in August, but is now quickly brightening up the cosmic world. You can see it even as it shifts from the southern skies to the northern hemisphere. Currently, it is glowing green, looking beautiful due to the molecules that glow when they are hit by the solar winds.

It is expected to be visible over Colorado skies through mid-January,

It was first seen by Terry Lovejoy, an Australian astronomer who used it with a common backyard telescope that had just an eight-inch mirror, when it called on the solar system at a weak 15th magnitude.

Initially, the scientists expected that the comet will not be visible to the unaided eye until late January or February 2015. But even as the chaotic surface activity made it heat up and melt near the sun during orbit, the comet's brightness increased too.

As the comet approaches the inner solar system almost perpendicular to our own orbit, it's obvious that it is switching from a Southern to Northern Hemisphere object in the next week.

But some observers in the Southern Hemisphere say that it is bright in the magnitude 6, hence it has reached naked-eye levels already. With binoculars, it can be seen as a clear, hazy ball.

In mid-January, even as it continues to brighten up, it might plateau at magnitude 4.1, so that it would not be visible to the unaided eye that is looking at it from "light-polluted city suburbs".

On December 21, comet-watchers pinned their eyes on binoculars under dark skies, in an "online comet-observing forum", managing to see just a hint of a faint tail that swept about 5 to 6 degrees back from the comet's coma, which was a "hazy cloud around the main body". That was like ten complete moon disks near each other in the sky.

If you'd like to tail Lovejoy around the sky, then click on this printable finder chart. On December 28, you will find that Comet Lovejoy has joined globular cluster M79, which can be viewed through a telescope.

If you wish to see more of the tail, then use the averted vision, which is an observing technique that uses "peripheral vision" in order to dig out the details from a faint object. Hopefully, the comet will get better and more visible during the vacation right upto the New Year.

But your Christmas has improved by seeing the comet through binoculars as it passes through the low southern constellation Columba, the Dove, which is about 30 degrees south of the constellation Orion. On Christmas Day, it passes about 18 degrees on the lower right of Sirius, our brightest star in the sky.