A wonderful binocular comet has been gracing our early morning skies, and now it’s visible in the evening as well, with optical aid, for latitudes like those in the northern U.S. and Canada. The comet is called C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). This image is from Bob King – aka AstroBob – in Duluth, Minnesota. He wrote: “My first view of Comet NEOWISE at dusk instead of dawn from a lake near Duluth on July 11. Comets and water naturally go together as they’re thought responsible in part for delivering water to the early Earth.

C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE), or Comet NEOWISE, is a retrograde comet with a near-parabolic orbit discovered on March 27, 2020, by astronomers using the NEOWISE space telescope. By July 2020 it was bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. For observers in the northern hemisphere, the comet appears low on the northern horizon, below Capella. In the second half of July 2020 it will appear to pass through the constellation of Ursa Major, below the asterism of The Plough (Big Dipper).