Seeing comets is great, but it’s unlikely to be as rare as the one that won’t be seen again for another 1,300 years.
Get your star-gazing kit out of the shed, because you’re not going to want to miss this.
According to reports, the brightest comet in the northern hemisphere is going to grace our skies tonight, and if you don’t see it, you never will.
Comet C/2025 A6, aka ‘Lemmon’, was named after the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, US, and was first seen in January this year.
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Shockingly, it’s going to do its first pass by since the eighth century, and the next time it’ll decide to pay us a visit again won’t be until 3325.
FOMO isn’t a joke, and missing out on this could just be enough to ruin your week, so instead, you can spend tonight looking at a green light in the sky as it bogs off to the great expanse once more.
When will Lemmon be in view?
The comet is supposed to come within 56 million miles of Earth tonight, before heading towards the Sun on 4 November.
That’s when its nucleus will melt and it’ll shine like a green lantern for all to see.
“Comet Lemmon is pretty much at its best visibility right now,” said Dr Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, to The Times.
Where is the best place to spot Lemmon?
If you want to make sure you’re actually able to see it among the Great British dreary weather, you should look to the western sky, as that’s where it’ll be for several nights.
The expert said it should look like a fuzzy object in the sky that you’ll see either with the naked eye or via binoculars.
If you’ve got a telescope, you’re better than all of us, as you’ll see it clearly as it zooms past.
“It’s a reasonably bright comet as they go,” Massey said. “The fact that you can see it easily with binoculars makes it fairly unusual, and for that reason alone it’s something to go and enjoy — particularly if you’ve never seen a comet before.”
When is the best time to spot Lemmon?
To make sure you’re getting it right on time, be prepared between 7.00pm and 8.00pm, which the Met Office believes will be clear.
The next big comet to be seen this year will be the controversial 3I/ATLAS, an object some have even claimed is an alien ‘mothership’ due to its erratic path and lack of comet tail.
This will be visible from around November or December, and if it is actually aliens, maybe they’ll be a little nicer than what we’ve fictionalised for decades.
Britt Jones