Comet Lulin Flys By Saturn

A quick reminder that bright Comet Lulin will be easy to locate tonight as it passes within a few degrees of Saturn. The comet is currently around 5th magnitude. This means observers at dark rural sites will be able to see the comet with their naked eyes as a faint glow. Observers in suburban and urban settings will be able to see the comet with small binoculars. Of course, if you have a telescope the view will be even better.

The comet will still be close (though moving away from) Saturn over the next few days.

If anyone gets a nice picture of the Comet and/or Saturn and wishes to share them, post a link to the image in the comments section and I’ll include them in a future posting.

lulin_02243
Sky chart showing the position of Comet Lulin and Saturn for 10 pm on the night of Feb 23. Chart produced with the Stellarium software (www.stellarium.org).

More on Comet Lulin can be found here at the “In The Sky This Month – February 2009” post.

A higher resolution finder chart for observers with binoculars or telescopes can be found at Heavens Above.

A great series of images can be found at Spaceweather.com.

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