July 3, 2020 – ALPO Comet News for July 2020
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is ~1st magnitude in the morning sky!
First there was C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), the “Great Comet” that couldn’t hold itself together. Then along came C/2020 F8 (SWAN), the bright consolation prize that decided to star in its own break-up act. After the back-to-back let downs of ATLAS and SWAN, C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is at perihelion and currently as bright as 1st magnitude. Though it isn’t the best placed object for observing and will fade as the month progresses, NEOWISE should be a memorable comet and perhaps the best since C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), the Really Good Comet of 2013.
In addition to NEOWISE, there are a number of fainter comets within reach of small apertures. In the evening we have C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) at 6th-7th magnitude and 88P/Howell and C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) at 9th magnitude. Frequent inner solar system visitor 2P/Encke begins July at 7th-8th magnitude though only for southern hemisphere observers.
The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. Note with all of the recent comet activity, this report is a bit large in size. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum (https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/715659-alpo-comet-news-for-july-2020/). All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.
- Carl Hergenrother
