Act fast to see this newly discovered comet with the naked eye in B.C.'s night sky

Stargazers in B.C. currently have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a newly discovered comet in the night sky — and a local astronomer recommends you try to spot it sooner rather than later.

Rachel Wang, an astronomer at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, says Comet NEOWISE C/2020 F3 might not be visible for another 6,800 years, so you should feast your eyes on it now.

The best way to do that, Wang said, is to look toward the northwest sky about one hour after sunset.

The comet can be seen with the naked eye.

NEOWISE, named for the space telescope that discovered it on March 27, was at first visible only through powerful telescopes. 

But the comet passed the sun and likely had some kind of outburst of activity that caused it to become much brighter than expected.

The comet, an ancient ball of ice and rock that orbits the sun, likely came from the outer edges of the solar system.

According to Wang, it has two tails — a feathery dust tail and an ion tail that she says points in different directions. In some pictures, the smaller, blue-coloured ion tail is visible, she said.

As comets round the sun, they become brighter as they warm and their ice sublimates — that is, turns directly from a solid into a gas — and other trapped gases are released. This is what gives comets their tails.

The comet has been visible in the early morning sky for a few days, but Wang says it is better to look for it in the evening because the morning light can be too bright to get a good view.

She said at the moment it can be located within the constellation Lynx, which looks like a big zig-zag in the sky below Ursa Major, the constellation that includes the Big Dipper. 

No binoculars or telescopes are necessary, but that could soon change again.

"It is dimming in magnitude so it is getting dimmer and dimmer as the days go on," said Wang, who suggests going soon and taking a camera. She said she managed to take a picture with her cellphone camera.

NEOWISE will make its closest approach to Earth on July 22 at a distance of 103 million kilometres, though it may have already faded by then.

According to CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe, the night sky should clear for most of the coming days with the exception of Thursday night, when rain is forecast.