Anyone looked at Comet PanSTARRS recently?

[Rick]

Comet PanSTARRS features in today's APOD, in a photograph taken a couple of days ago.

Comet PanSTARRS and a Crescent Moon (APOD)

If that image is any indication, then the comet might be worth pointing binoculars, a scope, or camera at...

[Mike]

I think it's only visible from the southern hemisphere.

[Rick]

It seems the first question should be "Which Comet PanSTARRS?" as there seem to be quite a few of them.

The answer (in the APOD annotation) is "C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS)".

A little playing with Starry Night shows it forming an equilateral triangle (more or less) under Jupiter and Venus, just above the horizon at sunset. Technically just about possible if you can find a loweenough western horizon, but not for long, and getting less possible every day as it heads south.

[Rick]

...and (according to the Ephemeris linked from the APOD) its declination remains positive (so it's still in the Northern hemisphere) until 26th June. Trouble is it's close to the horizon around sunset. Wonder whether it'll become a dawn object before it disappears too far south. (It gets to declination 30 degrees south on about August 24th.)

[The Thing]

It's just south of Jupiter and Venus at 21:00 CEST, 20:00 BST, so very low at 14deg up and not in a darkish even sky. At sunset (22:00CEST here) it will only be 4deg up. Good luck.

[Rick]

My horizon's not low enough here. A few days back it might have been possible, but now it's probably too low. Folk rather further south (maybe the south of France, or Florida, or Australia...) will fare better.

[The Thing]

I could have a go if I took my big bins to the dunes and looked towards Jersey, nice low horizon! Shame about all the clouds.

[Rick]

Twilight doesn't help much at these latitudes...

[Fay]

Nice APOD