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Today we are going to be taking a look at a couple of comets that are going to be visible over the course of the month of January. The comets that we’re going to be taking a look at will be visible through binoculars, but they’re not going to be quite bright enough to see with the naked eye. At least with, we don’t think so. These comets haven’t come to perihelion yet, so the comets aren’t at their brightest or most visible in the sky. As such, there is a chance that the comets will get brighter than we expect, but it is unlikely.

The first comet that we’re going to take a look at is Comet 24P Schaumasse, over in the direction of Leo and Virgo. We are looking at the up to date coordinates of the position of this comet, for 2026. It was discovered back on the 1st of December 1911, when it was just C/1911 X1. Looking forward to early January, it’s at magnitude 7.98, down to practically magnitude 10 because of how low it is in the sky. According to Stellarium, this is almost visible to the naked eye. As we come up a little bit later, it gets higher and a bit easier to see, thanks to less atmospheric extinction. This is assuming a sky as it would be seen from a city and it is, just about, visible. The recommendation is to observe this comet with a binoculars, not just with your naked eye, but also not necessarily with a telescope.

As we move forward its brightness should increase, its magnitude gets down to 7.94 just around the 8th of January. This is when it’s supposed to come to perihelion, which might seem odd given that we’re seeing it so far from the Sun. It’s still more or less in Virgo, very far from the Sun’s position This keeps it up pretty close to the middle of the night. At perihelion, its distance from the Sun is 1.184 AU. Astronomical Units are a big measurement, so not the most precise. Luckily, we can measure it in millions of kilometers as well. If we move through the distances a little bit, not only is 1.184 AU the closest distance it’s going to get to the Sun, 177.101 million kilometers seems to be just about the lowest number that we’re reaching. It may get a little bit lower if we used a more precise measurement, but I’m satisfied that this is the comet at its perihelion. This is at 3 o’clock in the morning, and the comet is pretty high in the sky, it doesn’t look like it’s anywhere near the Sun. It will be up with the Moon at its perihelion, and the Moon passing close to Comet 24P Schaumasser is going to affect how visible it is to us, it’s going to make it a little bit trickier to see. If we pop out to the countryside, of course, it will be a lot easier, but we’re not going to do that just yet.

Instead, we’re going to take a look for another comet. This next comet is also not particularly new. It is C/2024 E1 Wierzchoś. The name is a little tricky pronounce, it is a Polish name, not my area of expertise. This comet is up at the moment, but it is better seen from the southern hemisphere. Thanks to its apparent proximity to the Sun in our sky, we certainly can’t see it in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ll get rid of the atmosphere and we’ll move back in time to December. This puts the comet out at the side of the Sun, but it is very faint, just magnitude 8.95. As it comes up to perihelion, it appears to go under the Sun. Its perihelion is the 20th, and we can make sure by double checking the distance. On the 20th, it’s 1.356 AU from the Earth, 0.566 AU from the Sun. That should be roughly its perihelion, but even during the day it’s below the horizon for us here in Ireland. Taking a closer look, there is a tail and everything, and it’s gotten up to magnitude 5.19 which is quite bright. However, from our perspective south of the Sun is under the Sun, because of this position we need to bring ourselves to a location where south of the Sun is above the Sun. Coming down into the southern hemisphere, we can get ourselves a slightly better view.

With the Sun just setting in the west, there is some time where the comet above the horizon while the Sun is under it, if we are low enough in the southern hemisphere. Bring back the atmosphere and it is indeed visible, still at magnitude 5.21 pretty much its perihelion. It should be just on the edge of being visible to the naked eye, but again the recommendation is to use a binoculars when taking a look for this comet. This comet is an interesting one. You might be able to tell by the name, C/2024 E1, it’s not a periodical comet the way Comet 24P is. C/24P comes around about every eight years or so, but C/2024 E1 may never come around again. It was discovered just back in 2024 and named after the astronomer who discovered it. The calculations of this comet’s inward orbit stretch out to millions and millions of years, and its outward orbit may actually see it ejected from the solar system entirely.

We’re going to shift our perspective to one high above the solar system, the solar system observer, in order to see the orbits of these comets. Starting with C/2024 E1 on the 20th, about as close as it is getting to the Sun. Its distance to the Sun is just over half an AU. It’s definitely closer to the Sun than we are, about half the distance to the Sun as us, but it’s barely closer to the Sun than Venus and not as close as Mercury. The orbit of this comet is a broad curve, it does seem to imply that it’s not going to form an elliptical orbit, it’s going to be a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit. This is what indicates that the comet is going to be shot out of the solar system, its orbit is not going to curve back around to its starting point and form a closed loop. As the comet came into the inner solar system, it passed pretty close to Venus and then appears to cross just inside Venus’s orbit. It then crosses back out and continues back out towards Earth’s orbit. The position of the comet almost on the far side of the Sun from the Earth makes it appear nice and bright, but it is going to make it a little more difficult to observe. You can’t tell from a top down view, but we know, thanks to our view from the southern hemisphere, that this comet is actually below the Sun or south of the Sun from our perspective here on Earth.

We do have one more comet in the sky, so we’re going to look at C/24P Schaumasse. This is a nice short orbit. This is a Jupiter group comet and its orbit takes it just past the orbit of Jupiter, making it a very short period comet. We can tell that it’s a short period comet partly because of how close to the Sun its orbit reaches aphelion. It’s not going to take that long to reach its farthest and come back with this short of an orbit. Coming back to the 8th of January where the comet reaches its closest to the Sun, it’s still further from the Sun than the Earth. This makes the comet fainter, but it keeps it in our nighttime view. This is why this comet was able to appear so far from the Sun in our sky.

That’s those couple of comets, particularly the comet 24P for us in the northern hemisphere, it’s visible at 3 o’clock in the morning right in the middle of the sky, definitely a binoculars comet. C/2024 E1 is going to be visible mostly to people from the southern hemisphere and it’s going to be looking its best a little bit later in January just as we come up to the 20th. I hope you get to see one or more of those comets and I hope that you enjoyed this piece talking about them, just in case you don’t get to see them in real life. If you did enjoy this piece, then please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.