It looks like some cold days and nights lie ahead (at least here in the UK) so some of us will be heading out in the early hours to try and catch Comet C/2021 A1 Leonard as it dives towards Arcturus. It’s definitely going to be seen best before sunrise – when it will be quite high in the sky – but the comet will soon become visible in the evening sky too, so I’m sure people will be looking for it then. Frustratingly it will be very low in the sky tho, a real “tree-scraper”, so if you have any trees or buildings on your skyline they may well hide it, and even if your skyline is clear it will set before the sky gets properly dark, but that won’t stop us will it?

If you fancy giving it a go, here is another batch of finder charts, drawn for mid-UK latitudes and set for 5pm UT. As ever, if you live north or south, east or west of that then your local viewing circumstances will differ, but there are many phone and tablet apps you can use to find a comet’s position, and if you’re reading this that means you’re online and you can easily pull up an online planetarium page (such as the online version of Stellarium) to show you where the comet will be in *your* sky.

At the moment we have no idea what the comet will look like when it is closing in on that line of three planets. It would be nice if it grew a good tail, which would make for some lovely photos, but don’t count on that. It’ll do what it does.But I guess crossing our fingers can’t hurt, right?