If you miss this comet, you’ll have to wait another 71 years

April 18, 2024 12:49 AM

Want to see the "Devil Comet" at its brightest? If you miss it, you’ll have to wait another 71 years. Australians will be able to see comet 12P/Pons-Brooks aka the "Devil Comet" this week even without a telescope or binoculars. Here's how to spot it and snap a photo.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (10 comments total)

The greatest thing that the Devil ever did was convincing the world that he didn’t exis … OH, C’MON! YOU HAD ONE JOB, MATE!
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:24 AM on April 18 [3 favorites]

I honestly had never known of this comet until wackjobs here in the US started lumping the “devil comet” in with the recent eclipse as reasons we needed to heed god’s warnings and repent.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:26 AM on April 18 [2 favorites]

I'd rather the Devil Comet miss me, tbh.
posted by mhoye at 5:41 AM on April 18

Look, I'm as big an astronomy nerd as they come. I have a really hard time getting excited about a magnitude-four comet.

If I were going to hunt out some dark-sky observing in the next week, I would try to get Jupiter (with his moons) in the same telescopic view as Uranus, and then use the proximity to try to get myself into the elite club of humans who have recognized Uranus with the naked eye. The comet is in that neighborhood, too.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:56 AM on April 18 [2 favorites]

I was a kid when Halley's comet was last nearby. I remember being disappointed at the reality vs the hype. I think I would have appreciated it a lot more if I had been just a bit older.

to try to get myself into the elite club of humans who have recognized Uranus with the naked eye

Sometimes the jokes write themselves.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:40 AM on April 18 [3 favorites]

Still hoping to see another comet like Hyakutake. I remember stepping out of the car at a star party in Orangeville, north of Toronto and seeing it took up most of the sky. I was also lucky to have a telescope for the Shoemaker-Levy impacts on Jupiter. I remember coming up to it, buying a new eyepiece at Khan Scope Center and the owner telling me point blank that there'd be nothing to see. Thinking back now, there was also Efton Science across the road, with their giant prop telescope on the roof. It was the start of good, cheap optics coming out of China. Man, the 90s were a great for astronomy!
posted by brachiopod at 6:53 AM on April 18

I wouldn’t mind looking at the Devil Comet, but I don’t want it looking at me with its gaseous eruptions. No thanks!
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:07 AM on April 18

My dad was such a buzzkill about Halley's Comet. He told me all about how Mark Twain was born during one visit, and died 75 years later during the comet's next visit. It was the first time I was exposed to the concept of time as it relates to a slightly more cosmological scale, and probably why to this day I just do. not. want. to. think. about. the next time one of these events* will happen.

* I make an exception for lunar eclipses because they're somewhat frequent, easily visible, and pretty cool.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:41 AM on April 18 [1 favorite]

I remember hearing a lot about that too back in 1986, RonButNotStupid. I think one of my teachers quoted Twain as saying "I came in with the comet, and I'll go out with the comet." At the time I thought it was amazing: "Wow, Mark Twain predicted his own death!" assuming, I guess, that he'd given this quote while in the prime of his life, instead of—as I now presume—when he was on his death bed.
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:58 AM on April 18

I bet Twain looked up the date of his own death while he was on the Enterprise in the future. The comet was just a fortuitous coincidence.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:57 PM on April 18 [4 favorites]