As it heads towards the outer depths of the Solar System, comet Lovejoy remains visible with small telescopes and even good binoculars during March. Although now fading and past its best the comet has been a delight over recent months and should remain well within amateur astronomer range for some time to come. For a number of days in late December / early January it even was visible to the naked eye (peak mag. +3.9).

Lovejoy was the fifth comet to be discovered by prolific Australian comet hunter and amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy. He captured it on August 17, 2014 using nothing more than a 200mm (8-inch) scope with a digital camera attached. The subsequent set of time-lapsed images revealed nothing just a faint point of light (mag. +15) that moved slightly from image to image.

Location and star chart

Comet Lovejoy is now very much a Northern Hemisphere object as it continues to move in the direction of the North Celestial Pole. It spends the end of February in Perseus before crossing into Cassiopeia on the last day of the month. Magnitudes of comets are notoriously difficult to predict but we estimate on March 1st it will shine at +6.0 and therefore at the limit of naked eye visibility but easily seen with binoculars and small telescopes. For those located at southern temperate latitudes the comet is too far north to be seen at all.

From latitudes of at least 35 degrees north Lovejoy never sets during March and is visible all night. It's best seen during the middle two "Moonless" weeks of the month. Highlights include on March 10th when the comet passes 1 degree east of the brightest open cluster in Cassiopeia, NGC 457 the Owl Cluster (mag. +6.4). At magnitude +6.5, Lovejoy is fractionally fainter than the splendid open cluster. A few days later on March 16th it passes 0.1 degrees west of Ruchbah (δ Cas - mag +2.7). As the comet is expected to be more than 4 magnitudes fainter than the star it will probably be difficult to spot against the bright stellar glare. However, it should be easier to see over the next few evenings when it passes just west of two more bright open clusters, M103 (mag. +7.4) and NGC 663 (mag. +7.1). At closest separation Lovejoy is 1 degree from M103 and 3 degrees from NGC 663. It should be noted that Messier Catalogue hunters often mistakenly identify NGC 663 as M103!

The finder charts below show the positions of the comet from January 28th to April 1st, 2015.

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) Finder Chart from February 12th to April 1st, 2015 - pdf format

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) Finder Chart from January 28th to March 1, 2015 - pdf format

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) Data (at epoch December 9, 2014)

Comet (C2014/Q2) Lovejoy Data Table

See also

Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) remains visible with binoculars and small telescopes during February 2015
How to see Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) during January 2015
Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) a naked eye comet for the New Year
Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) now visible with binoculars from Southern latitudes