Pons-Brooks in the twilight

I meant to add a sky scene to help in finding this comet. Here it is.

At the time and American location of the scene, the comet should be 23° above the horizon, and shining at magnitude about 5.6.

My representation of the tail suggests how it is driven outward from the Sun and curves backward during the tight swing around the inner part of the orbit. The tail may or may not be as large as shown, and it and the fuzzy coma may have low contrast against the sky background.

Arrows through comet and Sun show their movement, relative to the starry background, over a span of five days. The comet is brightening, and moving fast, but at an angle that is taking it lower in relation to the Sun. Its elongation (angular distance from the Sun) is now 34°, and will shrink to 23° at the April 2 time of perihelion and greatest brightness.

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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.

One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.

Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it.  If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or you can click ‘Refresh’ to get the latest version.