August 3, 2023 – ALPO Comet News for August 2023
This month we welcome two returning periodic comets breaking the 12th magnitude barrier. In April 2024, Halley-type comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will make its first perihelion passage since 1954. On July 20th, it experienced a 4- to 5-magnitude outburst and is now an 11th-magnitude object in the evening sky. Due to peak at 7th magnitude this October, 103P/Hartley is returning for the second time since its superb return in 2010. By the end of this month, 103P should brighten to magnitude 9.5 in the morning sky.
Also visible this month are 8th magnitude C/2021 T4 (Lemmon), 9th magnitude C/2020 V2 (ZTF) and C/2023 E1 (ATLAS), and 11th magnitude C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS).
Last month the ALPO Comets Section received 180 observations of comets C/2023 E1 (ATLAS), C/2023 A3 (Tsuchishan-ATLAS), C/2022 W3 (Leonard), C/2022 E3 (ATLAS), C/2022 A2 (PANSTARRS), C/2021 T4 (Lemmon), C/2020 V2 (ZTF), C/2020 K1 (PANSTARRS), C/2019 U5 (PANSTARRS), C/2019 T4 (ATLAS), C/2019 L3 (ATLAS), 237P/LINEAR, 126P/IRAS, 103P/Hartley, 80P/Peters-Hartley, 32P/Comas Sola, 12P/Pons-Brooks, and 2P/Encke. A big thanks to our July contributors: Dan Bartlett, J. J. Gonzalez, Jose Guilherme de Souza Aguiar, Christian Harder, Carl Hergenrother, Eliot Herman, John Maikner, Martin Mobberley, Charles Morris, Gary T. Nowak, Uwe Pilz, Michael Rosolina, Greg Shanos, Tenho Tuomi, and Chris Wyatt.
The monthly ALPO Comet News PDF can be found here. A shorter version of this report is posted on a dedicated Cloudy Nights forum. All are encouraged to join the discussion over at Cloudy Nights.
