This object was discovered from Hawaii in October, when it was originally thought to be an asteroid. But further study by astronomer Ari Heinze proved that it's a comet.
It will pass around 20 million miles from Earth on January 4th, on its way to perihelion on February 21st. It's not going to be very bright (around 8th magnitude), but should still be visible in our telescopes.
I first detected it from New Mexico a couple of weeks ago:
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File comment: Comet Heinze on 12-Dec. 2x 170-sec with 250mm f/3.4 reflector.
c2017t1_12dec.png [ 160.97 KiB | Viewed 739 times ]
But it's brightening rapidly, as can be seen from these more recent images which I got from the
COAST facility on Tenerife:
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File comment: Comet Heinze on 21-Dec. 3x 150-sec with C14 at f/10.
c2017t1_21dec.png [ 213.82 KiB | Viewed 739 times ]
And it's so fast-moving that it shows trailing even over 150 seconds, so on the following morning I halved the exposure-time:
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File comment: Comet Heinze on 22-Dec. 4x 75-sec with C14 at f/10.
c2017t1_22dec.png [ 178.12 KiB | Viewed 739 times ]
It's an early-morning object at the moment, but is moving very quickly across the sky, so it will be visible all night in the first half of January.