Comet ATLAS
From April 2020 through to July 2020, Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4 will be passing close to the Sun and will often be visible in the night sky from the UK - at its brightest, perhaps with the unaided eye. Here you can see where the comet is today.
Update: In early April the comet started to break up. This can happen to comets as they get closer to the Sun and start to heat up. This is very interesting to watch, and can help astronomers to understand more about comets as they study the breakup in detail, but it does mean that the comet is rather fainter and so will probably not become visible to the unaided eye.

Where is the Comet?

7PM | 8PM | 9PM | 10PM | 11PM | Midnight
1AM | 2AM | 3AM | 4AM | 5AM | 6AM

as it orbits through the solar system.
Observations of the Comet

These observations were taken on the night of 19/04/2020:
Individual Observations
- 10 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 60 second exposure in SDSS I filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 60 second exposure in SDSS R filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS G filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS G filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS G filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS G filter
- 10 second exposure in SDSS G filter
- 60 second exposure in SDSS G filter
Stacked Observations
- Stack of 5x10 second exposures in SDSS I filter
- Stack of 5x10 second exposures in SDSS R filter
- Stack of 5x10 second exposures in SDSS G filter
- All the observations combined
These FITS files need special software to display and analyse them. If you have not worked with them before, there is some help here.
Explore the Comet close approach
Highlighted dates have Liverpool Telescope observations available.
April | ||||||
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Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
May | ||||||
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Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
1 | 2 | |||||
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
31 |
June | ||||||
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Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
28 | 29 | 30 |
July | ||||||
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Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |