Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin on the morning of Feb. 1, 2009. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Cooper/www.darkerview.com)

Finder chart for Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin for the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 4 and Thursday, Feb. 5.

Andrew Cooper/Special to Hawaii247.com
An opportunity to see a comet without a telescope occurs this month. Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin is currently in the morning sky, near the center of the constellation Libra. It is slowly brightening as it nears the Earth and will be closest Feb. 24. Perihelion, the comet’s close approach with the Sun, occurred Jan. 10.

The comet is expected to reach fifth magnitude in late February, just bright enough to be seen from a dark location without the use of a telescope of binoculars. Magnitude 5 is just bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, but will require some effort to locate and see as a small fuzzy star. To really appreciate the view try binoculars or a small telescope.

Comet Lulin was discovered by astronomers in July 2007. Chinese astronomer Quanzhi Ye, a student at Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou, China), found the comet on images obtained by Chi-Sheng Lin (Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, Jung-Li, Taiwan) at the Lulin Observatory. The discovery was a product of the Lulin Survey, an project to map small bodies in the solar system.

Because of the unusual geometry of our view of this comet has two tails. Contrary to most expectations comet tails do not point behind the comet as it orbits. The dust tail is buffeted by the solar wind and always points away from the sun from the comet’s nucleus.

The odd part, when viewing Comet Lulin, is that one tail points in one direction and the other is seen in the completely the opposite direction, an anti-tail. The second tail in this case is cometary dust in the plane of the comet’s orbit. As the comet orbits in nearly the same plane at the Earth this dust is seen edge-on and becomes bright enough to be visible.

The comet should be easily observable through much of February. An ephemeris of the comet can be found at the Minor Planet Center. For finder charts and magnitude estimates visit Seiichi Yoshida’s comet page for Comet Lulin.

Another comet, 144P Kushida is currently visible in the evening sky, crossing through Taurus.  A little dim to be seen without optical aid, the comet can easily be found with binoculars near the bright star Aldebaran, crossing through the Hyades for the next few days. 

— Find out more:
Seiichi Yoshida’s comet Web site: www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html
Minor Planet Center comet ephemeris: www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/2007N3.html 

(Andrew Cooper is an engineer, an amateur astronomer, a telescope maker and more. You can find his Web site at www.darkerview.com.)