Don’t Miss This Month’s Spectacular Show: Two Green Comets Light Up the Night Sky!

Two comets are making their way through our solar system this fall, offering a special chance to catch a glimpse of them in the coming weeks. The comets, C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and C/2025 R2 (SWAN), are currently visible from the Northern Hemisphere as they journey around the sun.

Seeing two comets at the same time is quite rare. Both can be spotted using binoculars or small telescopes until the end of October. Comet Lemmon, in particular, may be bright enough to see without any equipment when it reaches its closest point to Earth around October 21.

Skywatchers have already had success in spotting these icy bodies. Julien De Winter, an astrophotographer and lecturer from Belgium, captured a stunning image of Comet Lemmon in late September. Its greenish tint, caused by carbon in the comet’s gas cloud, adds to its striking appearance.

From now until mid-October, you can look for Comet Lemmon near the Big Dipper in the pre-dawn hours. Aim your gaze northeast, just beneath the constellation’s distinctive shape. After about a week, it will shift to the evening sky, rising in the west. While it may be visible to the naked eye, conditions must be just right to see it clearly.

Comet SWAN will be best viewed in the evening, about 90 minutes after sunset, looking southwest. This comet might not be bright enough for unaided observation, so binoculars or a telescope will help. In the days leading up to its closest approach around October 20, it’s expected to rise higher in the sky and possibly become brighter.

If you’re lucky enough to have clear skies and minimal light pollution, you might see both comets on the same night near the end of the month.

Comet Lemmon was discovered in January by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona, which is focused on finding near-Earth objects. Comet SWAN was spotted even more recently by an amateur astronomer while analyzing images from NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

Interestingly, this month also features Comet 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar visitor. This makes it the third confirmed comet from outside our solar system. Notably, it was recently observed by a spacecraft orbiting Mars and is expected to make its closest approach to the sun around October 30.

Catching a glimpse of these comets adds excitement to our skywatching experiences. They remind us of the beauty and wonder of the universe.

For more information about celestial observations, check out resources like EarthSky and keep an eye on updates about upcoming astronomical events.

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