Christmas Comet Lovejoy will be observable to the naked eye – The Daily

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It overlooks the Christmas Comet that should give the best of themselves in mid-January: with his tail light is among the stars of constellation Dove , which is visible to the naked eye. After a great show in the southern skies comet C / 2014 Q2 Lovejoy is ‘scrambling’ in the skies of the Northern Hemisphere in perfect sync for Christmas.

You can groped to observe starting from 24 December, pointing a binoculars or small telescope in a southerly direction, at the foot of Orion. The object, says astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, in charge of the Virtual Telescope and scientific curator of the Planetarium of Rome, is very low on the horizon, but in areas without light pollution you can see it even with the naked eye although it is not easy, because it has a magnitude of 5.5, which is very close to the limit that is 6 for observations with the naked eye.

The comet will begin to rise in the sky around the Epiphany, between 5 and 7 January, but in those days there will be Moon that will disturb the observation. The ideal location for the observations is scheduled in mid gennai or when the comet will be very high on the horizon in the constellation Hare , but it is said, detects Masi, who in that period will be active as now.

Discovery on August 17, 2014 dall’astrofilo Australian Terry Lovejoy from which it takes its name, the comet will reach the minimum distance from the Sun January 30 next when it will be 200 million kilometers from our star, January 7 instead will be to his minimum distance from Earth , 70 million miles.

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