Friday, June 05, 2020
C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) binocular bright. June 6 to June 30
 |  |
| Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) as seen looking west from Adelaide at 6:41 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on Saturday June 6. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes after sunset. | Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) as seen looking west from Adelaide at 6:41 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on Saturday June 13. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes after sunset. |
 |  |
| Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) as seen looking west from Adelaide at 6:42 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on Saturday June 20. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes after sunset. | Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) as seen looking west from Adelaide at 6:43 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on Tuesday June 23. Similar views will be seen in elsewhere in Australia 90 minutes after sunset. |
Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) is unexpectedly bright, Comet C/2019 U6 (Lemmon) is currently magnitude 6 (just visible to the unaided eye,) under dark sky conditions, and may reach magnitude 5.5 at its brightest.
Currently in the constellation Puppis it will move rapidly into Hydra then into Sextans. It is brightening and may peak at magnitude 5.5 from 20th to 30th June. From Australia the comet is visible in good conditions for some time.
A black and white spotters chart suitable for printing. Click to embiggen and print.Use with a red-light torch (or a standard torch with red cellophane over it) so as to not disturb your night vision.
Because the comet is a fuzzy dot it will be a bit harder to spot the equivalent brightness stars. Allow at least 5 minutes for your eyes to become dark adapted.
Unfortunately there are no prominent guide stars to help find it, but it remains within around a binocular fields of a line drawn between Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) and Alphard (alpha Hydrae). On the 23rd it is right on top of Alphard.
A black and white spotters chart suitable for printing. Click to embiggen and print. The large circles are the approximate field of view of 10x50 binoculars. Use with a red-light torch (or a standard torch with red cellophane over it) so as to not disturb your night vision.
MPEC one line ephemeris suitable for adding to astronomy programs such as Stellarium
CK19U060 2020 06 18.8225 0.914243 0.997884 329.6609 235.7058 61.0014 20200531 10.0 4.0 C/2019 U6 (Lemmon)
Labels: binocular, C/2019 U6, comet, unaided eye
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:31 pm 
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
Click to read about or order
