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Comet Machholz in the Evening Sky (Sky & Telescope)

A fine comet for binoculars is floating high overhead in the evening sky (assuming you're in the Northern Hemisphere), awaiting inspection every clear night. It's even dimly visible to the naked eye — easily from a dark-sky site, less so if you live in a light-polluted suburb, and not at all from big cities. Binoculars, however, are showing it very nicely from practically anywhere. But you have to know exactly where to look.

Comet Machholz ranges across Taurus and Perseus in January and passes Cassiopeia in early February. Comet symbols show its position at 0:00 Universal Time on the dates indicated (which is on the evening of the previous date in the time zones of North America). Charts through next May are in the January Sky & Telescope, page 84. S&T: Gregg Dinderman


Comet Machholz, C/2004 Q2, remains at its best (about magnitude 3.8) for the first half of January as it moves across Taurus and Perseus. It passed just 2° west of the Pleiades on the evening of the 7th. Around that time the comet was at its closest to Earth (0.35 astronomical unit). On the evening of January 16th, Comet Machholz passes less than 2° east of 2nd-magnitude Algol, Beta (b) Persei, as shown on the chart below.

Around the 15th, however, moonlight again begins to interfere with the view. The Moon will get worse in the following few days and will remain a problem until about January 27th, when evenings will once again return to darkness. But even by then the comet should have faded only a little.