December 2021 Comet. The LEONARD

 Comet 2021-A1 LEONARD

By-Ramesh S Krishna
Image credit: Chuck's Astrophotography 


What is a comet?

  Comet is a icy body orbiting sun. Most of the comets have a highly-Eccentric  orbit. These object comes from OORT CLOUD.

Parts of a comet:

Image credit: Little astronomy 
COMA:It is like the atmosphere of a comet. It comes only when comet is near the sun
NUCLEUS: Nucleus is like the core of comet.
TAIL: It Will come  when the ice melts from the comet. It can extend for millions of miles. It will also happen when comet comes close to the sun.

https://rskrocketry.blogspot.com/2021/09/comet-c2020-t2-spotting.html
This is the link for the comet that I've spotted.

Introduction:
Comet LEONARD, is the only major visible comet of 2021. It was discovered by G.J. LEONARD from MOUNT LEMMON OBSERVATORY on JAN 3rd 2021. 


Discovery of the comet:


Leonard was discovered when it was 5AU from Sun. A specialty is that, it was discovered 1 year before it's perihelion[closest point to the sun in it's orbit]. This comet will start to appear to naked eye from DECEMBER 4/5th. According to STELLARIUM, It had a magnitude of +19.03 while it was discovered.

More about the comet:

App used: STELLARIUM


This comet has a conjunction with ARCTURUS. It would just be 5 degree apart on 6-Dec-2021. It has a distant aphelion[ farthest point from sun its orbit] of 3700AU[1 AU=Distance between earth to Sun]. It's perihelion is 0.6151 AU from Sun.

Conjunctions of Leonard:

M3:Gloubular cluster on 3rd December


WHALE GALAXY: On 24th November.

NGC 4956:A day after conjunction with Whale galaxy


ARCTURUS: On 6th December


PLANET PARADE: Best on highest on 22nd from a city, It can be viewed with 3 other planets from evening appearance.
On 22nd December. 


Good time to spot LEONARD:

 If you have a telescope, you can start observing now. Any type of telescope is fine. You can have a long exposure period for a image. As per, 6-12-2021 19.30 IST, It has a magnitude of +05.45. If you are in a light polluted place, You can start it to observe from 8th December even with a naked eye. On December 14/15 according to your location, It will switch to an Evening appearance from morning as it would be washed out by the sun. Leonard will appear below Venus & the planet parade.

I'll take an Image of it & put it in my next blog. So, please be checking my blog site regularly! 
Also, do not forget to share this blog with others as it would encourage me to write more blogs.

Thanks,
Happy spotting!!

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