As February grows older a comet grows brighter. 2P/Encke, also known as Encke's Comet will be visible in our skies with a telescope or a pair of binoculars. It is a 4.8km wide comet first discovered in 1786 by Pierre Mechain. More than 30 years later a German astronomer named Johann Franz Encke computed its orbit and, subsequently, had his name immortalized. The naming convention of '2P' indicates the comet was the 2nd Periodic comet discovered. The first periodic comet being the more famous 1P/Halley.
The debris left from the comet is known to cause the northern and southern Taurid meteor showers throughout the autumnal months.
2P/Encke will peak in magnitude around 3.5 which is the brightness of a lot of naked eye stars seen from a light polluted city. However, it reaches this magnitude as it approaches the Sun and the twilight will completely washout any hope of seeing it. A NASA image of the comet taken from a Mercury orbiter caught this great image in 2013.
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| 2P/Encke |
However, if you have a pair of binoculars or a telescope I have some tips on finding this comet in February. On February 23 at 19:30 the star chart is provided below. 2P/Encke will be approximately 7° southwest of Venus and approximately 2° northeast of Omega Piscium. This would put the comet about 2 binocular fields of view away from Venus and in the same field of view as Omega Piscium. It will be magnitude 6.7, unable to be accessed by the naked eye but certainly possible in a simple pair of binoculars.
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| 2P/Encke Star Chart |
Please click below for a downloadable, printable version of the star chart.
2P/Encke Printable Star Chart
As the month grows older I will update my progress on hunting down the comet. If I am able to find it I will detail the procedure in a special blog post so you may have the opportunity to find it yourself. There will be likely no opportunity to observe the skies this week as the weather deteriorates significantly below seasonal for the next 5 days. Stay warm and don't look up lest you get snow in your eyes.
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