July 2, 2024 – ALPO Comet News for July 2024
This month’s ALPO Comet News will be shorter than usual. This is partly due to other commitments vying for my time and the fact that only four comets are expected to be brighter than magnitude 12 this month.
Halley-type comet 13P/Olbers will be the brightest comet of the month. Early July should see Olbers peak at around magnitude 6.6, and it will only be a few tenths of a magnitude fainter at the end of the month. It is only visible from the northern hemisphere low in the western evening sky. Joining Olbers in the evening sky for northern observers is C/2023 V4 (Camarasa-Duszanowicz), which should fade from 11th to 13th magnitude.
Southern observers will be able to observe the other returning Halley-type comet, 12P/Pons-Brooks. Now over two months past perihelion, Pons-Brooks is still experiencing outbursts, though fading from magnitude 8.0 to almost 10 in July.
C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) will be the main comet story for the remainder of 2024. Unfortunately, the comet continues its intrinsic fading that started around May 1st. Northern hemisphere observers will only be able to observe the comet through mid-July. Southern hemisphere observers will be able to follow the comet into August.
Last month, the ALPO Comets Section received 110 images and 95 magnitude estimates of 25 comets: C/2024 J1 (Wierzchos), C/2024 G3 (ATLAS), C/2024 G1 (Wierzchos), C/2024 F2 (PANSTARRS), C/2024 C4 (ATLAS), C/2024 A2 (ATLAS), C/2023 X1 (Leonard), C/2023 V4 (Camarasa-Duszanowicz), C/2023 C2 (ATLAS), C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), C/2022 L2 (ATLAS), C/2022 E2 (ATLAS), C/2021 S3 (PANSTARRS), C/2021 G2 (ATLAS), C/2019 U5 (PANSTARRS), C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS), 227P/Catalina-LINEAR, 154P/Brewington, 144P/Kushida, 62P/Tsuchinshan, 32P/Comas Sola, 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, 144P/Kushida, 13P/Olbers, and 12P/Pons-Brooks.
A big thanks to our recent contributors: Dan Bartlett, Dan Crowson, José J. Chambó, Jose Guilherme de Souza Aguiar, J. J. Gonzalez Suarez, Christian Harder, Carl Hergenrother, Eliot Herman, Rik Hill, Michael Jäger, John Maikner, Gianluca Masi, Michael Mattiazzo, Martin Mobberley, Mike Olason, Uwe Pilz, Gregg Ruppel, Chris Schur, Willian Souza, 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.
