Leonard's Comet is moving towards Earth

On December 12, 2021, Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) will be located at a distance of only 35 million kilometers from Earth and can be seen with the naked eye in the morning sky. That's what it looked like last night.

Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jaeger took this picture on November 11 using an 11-inch telescope. The comet shone like a 9th magnitude star in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs). On closer inspection, a narrow jet of gas is visible coming out of the comet's atmosphere. This is the "ion tail" of the comet.

Over the next month, the comet's brightness will increase dramatically, perhaps by more than 100 times. Most forecasters agree that Comet Leonard will reach magnitude +4, will be an easy target for small telescopes and will be visible to the naked eye from places in the dark sky in the second week of December.

When the comet approaches the Sun in early January, direct scattering of sunlight through the comet's dusty atmosphere can create an additional burst of brightness up to +1 magnitude. The same phenomenon happened to Comet McNaught in 2007, making it visible in daylight.