A look back at some of the brighter comets in the past 10 years. None of them was a Great Comet that becomes stunningly extended in dark skies and easily visible to unaided eyes even from cities. The last two Great Comets was McNaught in 2007 (mainly southern hemisphere sky) and Hale-Bopp in 1997 (mainly northern sky). On average a Great Comet appears every decade land we are past due for another one in the next few years. For those of you with a good pair of binocular, a telescope, or a fast telephoto lens, currently, Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3) is approaching the Earth. Late January will be the best time to see it before the moon becomes too bright. As you see in the map by @skyandtelescopemag (the last slide) It sails between the the Big and Little Dippers and passes near the North Star, Polaris, which means it’s visible only in the northern hemisphere. It may become dimly visible to unaided eyes under dark skies, like a faint fuzzy star. But photographically using telephoto lenses and long exposures is much more interesting with a green head and several degrees of tail. We usually have one of these barely naked-eye comets every year or so. ZTF is named after a sky survey project on California’s Mt Palomar Observatory and is visiting from the outer Solar System’s boundaries in the Oort Cloud. #comet #stargazing #astrophotography @twanight