Comet Section

John Drummond, Director of the Comet and Meteor Section, will provide regular updates to facilitate Comet and Meteor observations by RASNZ members and the astronomic community.

More observations from the Southern Hemisphere would be highly valued by the international community. Over the coming months John and key Section members, will provide information on observing equipment, observing tips and where to send the observations to encourage and support more observers to join this effort from New Zealand.

C/2024 G3 ATLAS

The comet might be visible tonight (Wednesday 15 January, 2025) just after sunset. With binoculars and a very low western horison, sweep about 7-degrees north of where the Sun sets (make sure the Sun is below the horison!). Tomorrow night, it will be about 4-degrees higher in the sky, so an easier target. Sadly the 'r' and 'delta' are increasing, so it's moving away from Sun and Earth, so will probably fade quite quickly (over 1-2 weeks).

The ephemerides below were generated using GUIDE 9.1 planetarium software:

Date
RAdeclinationrdeltamagElongCon
15 Jan 202520h04m22.02s-17 35' 49.0"0.10950.9400-0.76.0Sgr
16 Jan 202520h23m25.75s-19 25' 03.4"0.14350.95680.58.3Cap
17 Jan 202520h38m37.24s-21 17' 21.2"0.18270.98111.610.7Cap
18 Jan 202520h51m10.29s-23 00' 22.4"0.22231.00852.512.7Cap
19 Jan 202521h01m54.74s-24 32' 15.6"0.26101.03753.214.5Cap
20 Jan 202521h11m20.96s-25 53' 46.6"0.29851.06703.916.1Cap
21 Jan 202521h19m48.16s-27 06' 12.4"0.33481.09674.417.5Cap
22 Jan 202521h27m29.12s-28 10' 48.2"0.36991.12644.918.7PsA
23 Jan 202521h34m32.77s-29 08' 40.2"0.40401.15605.419.7PsA
24 Jan 202521h41m05.60s-30 00' 44.0"0.43701.18535.820.7PsA
25 Jan 202521h47m12.50s-30 47' 46.5"0.46921.21436.121.6PsA
26 Jan 202521h52m57.23s-31 30' 26.8"0.50061.24306.522.3PsA
27 Jan 202521h58m22.77s-32 09' 17.8"0.53131.27136.823.1PsA