January 1, 2020 – ALPO Comet News for January 2020
Happy New Year and welcome to 2020!
The brightest comet as 2020 begins is long-period comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS). It is possible that PANSTARRS will be the brightest comet of the year even though it is only predicted to peak around magnitude 8. This month, PANSTARRS is nicely placed for northern observers in the evening sky. CCD observers can observe interstellar visitor 2I/Borisov at 15-16th magnitude though it is likely to start fading. Another comet of interest to CCD imagers is short-period comet 289P/Blanpain which passes within 0.09 au of Earth this month. How bright this comet gets is uncertain as it is a faint, outburst prone object.
The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/688998-alpo-comet-news-for-january-2020/). All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.
- Carl Hergenrother
