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New long period comet on show in December (maybe!)

November 12, 2021

Watch the skies in early December and you might just see something that hasn't visited this part of space for round 80,000 years!!

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) is a long period comet that was first detected in January of this year by G. J. Leonard at the Mount Lemmon Observatory on 3 January 2021.

On 12 December 2021 the comet will be 0.233 AU (34.9 million km) from Earth and on 18 December 2021 will be 0.028 AU (4.2 million km) from Venus. It will make its closest approach to the Sun on 3 January 2022 and may reach naked eye visibility in December 2021. At an apparent magnitude of 4, it should be a good binocular comet. On 10 October the comet showed a short but dense dust tail.

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