When is the next time a comet is going to be visible to the naked eye to people in the UK?

Question

I don't mean Halley's Comet, I mean any comet.

Answer 1

There are two categories of comets: the ones we know about, and the ones that sneak up on us and surprise us.  

There are literally hundreds of comets that we know about- the periodic comets-  which regularly fall into the inner solar system- and their appearance is fairly predictable.    A small percentage of these brighten to naked eye visibility.  

Most comets, periodic or not,  are either too faint to be easily seen or brighten to within reach of people with small telescopes or binoculars.  This happens regularly and, at any given time, there are usually a few visible to folks in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, naked eye comets are fairly rare.  They tend to occur a couple of times a year.  If you have very sharp vision, a very dark, moonless sky, and good weather, there is a comet RIGHT NOW that is visible.  It is comet W1 Boattini.  For UK observers, it will be low in the eastern sky during morning twilight.  Over the next couple of weeks it will get higher in the sky and easer to make out over the morning twilight.   Binoculars will undoubtedly help in finding this comet, as it is around Magnitude 5.5, making it just barely visible to the naked eye.

Good information on which comets are currently visible can be found at:

http://cometchasing.skyhound.com/

Answer 2

you'll know when everybody else does. naked-eye comets tend to be surprises (e.g. 17p/holmes last year). nice ones, but surprises nonetheless.

Answer 3

Boattini is currently just about naked eye, and seems to be getting brighter.  What are you waiting for?  Get out there!

Check out the bright comets web site.

Answer 4

Svengler's Comet seems to have disappeared or disintegrated but its tail, an estimated, mind-boggling 2 million light years long, still orbits the heavens. A warning: it can be mistaken with a naked eye for the Dublius Rex chain when passing by the other side of the Sun. The clue is the tail has more greenish light.

Answer 5

Your best chance would be for a newly discovered one, there are roughly about twenty or so discovered each year, most will not be naked eye ones, but maybe two to three in a year are, but not visible from all places on earth.  We in the Northern hemisphere missed a great one last year, visible in the daylight, named McNaught, those "down under" had a great show.

I would recommend signing up to get e-news letters/alerts for this sort of thing, it is free, see link below.

Answer 6

This one was (maybe still is) visible with binoculars: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8334...

Comet 22P/Kopff will be visible next year with binoculars: UK observers should pick it up as a binocular object of around 9m in June, when it is at its brightest. It slowly fades, remaining in Aquarius, and will be around 12th magnitude in November when it sinks into the evening twilight for northern observers.