When will the next bright comet appear? This was the question on every stargazer’s mind over the last few years. On average a good naked eye comet should appear every decade or two, however if you live in the northern hemisphere like we do then this statistic offered much scepticism. The last ‘proper’ naked eye comet to grace northern skies was C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp in 1997, this comet made it into the ‘great’ category and broke records by being visible for 15 months without optical aid, many members will vividly recall this wonderful comet and for some, like the author of this article, it was the comet which cut many of our sky teeth on.

We have had many cometary visitors since those glory days, who can forget the historic outburst of 17P/Holmes in 2007 or the beautiful tail on 153P/Ikeya-Zhang visible to the naked eye during the Spring of 2002. Our most recent celestial visitor worthy of addressing was of course C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS in 2013 which formed a beautiful conjunction with Messier 31, both celestial objects were visible with the unaided eye as ghostly phantoms, on occasion accompanied by the Zodiacal Light. These comets were nice objects for trained observers however for members of the public who didn’t know where to look the comets past unseen and the question always returned, when will we get a real naked eye comet?

I know I’m not speaking for myself when northern hemisphere observers felt cheated and let down when the southern hemisphere got treated to two great comets in the form of C/2006 P1 McNaught and C/20011 W3 Lovejoy, the latter being a sungrazer with long exclamation mark tail while the former was a remarkable comet sporting a huge peacock dust tail which curved across some 30 or more degrees of sky and complimented by a spectacular array of synchronic bands, for many this was the comet of a life time. Although McNaught was seen from the north prior to perihelion it was nothing compared to what it would become two weeks later from the south.

Our patience was rewarded by the discovery of C/2012 S1 ISON in 2013 which promised to be a great comet for the north, due to its fine post-perihelion positioning and forward scattering there was confident speculation of a high contrast naked eye tail at least 40 degrees long which generated much comet fever.  ISON approached the sun and in full view of the world via SOHO imagery it broke apart, the comet was baked by its fiery perihelion approach and rapidly faded as a comet ghost taking our dreams with it.

2020 brought a resurgence in comet interest with several candidates which could put on a fine show. C/2019 Y4 ATLAS was expected to become a great comet for the north however two weeks before perihelion it rapidly faded and broke apart, it was obvious this was a delicate object which had transformed into a rumble pile. I watched, fascinated, night after night during lock down as this elongated patch of haze slowly crept among the stars, although the comet was a let down it was still fascinating to watch while the world’s best CCD imagers captured a train of comet condensations with their own tails within that haze, a scene not dissimilar to D/1993 F2 Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994 prior to its spectacular collision with Jupiter.

How could the northern hemisphere have such bad luck with comets?, it seemed that time was running out and some began to seriously wonder if we would ever see a decent comet again. To soften the blow of ATLAS comet C/2020 F8 SWAN was discovered and began to brighten fast with a developing gas tail, if it kept up its current rate of brightening it could be a naked eye object in the north after perihelion, could this be our chance?

The first clear night when SWAN was visible I was ready and waiting, I was expecting a binocular object at the very least. I used my 8” telescope to sweep the region of sky near Auriga and after one hour of constant searching I almost gave up, then I found it. What a disappointment it was, a faint haze barely visible against the background sky, I estimated its magnitude at +8.2 instead of naked eye, I later learned the following day that SWAN had disintegrated.

Nature didn’t want to give up and soon yet another interesting comet was discovered designated C/2020 F3 NEOWISE named after the Near Earth Object Infra Red Wide Field Survey Explorer. This was a spacecraft which scans the skies searching for Earth threatening asteroids and comets, it made many discoveries however its latest would become historic.

NEOWISE was a long period comet on an orbit which would bring it very close to the Sun just inside the orbit of planet Mercury. The comet would round the sun and become visible from the northern hemisphere during July when it might be visible in binoculars. However the damage had already been done and many observers had gave up not wanting to be let down once again, this was an all too familiar story. Sky watchers watched it with passing interest and even comet experts were sceptical with some saying its rate of brightness could not be sustained and the comet had a small nucleus, in other words its future was not great. The comet kept brightening then during late July it passed through SOHO’s LASCO C3 camera where the world could watch its perihelion performance. This was when the excitement surged, NEOWISE was brightening rapidly and had developed a good tail and it not only that it looked completely healthy and intact, the consensus was this  comet was putting on a very good show and there was nothing stopping what looked to be a proper naked eye comet on the way.

A few days after perihelion it was picked up at magnitude +0 from New Mexico then as it receded from the sun it become readily visible for everyone in the north.  During the apparition of NEOWISE I managed to observer and photograph the comet on nine different nights over a two week period including the magic moment for five nights in a row when it was at its best after perihelion and during its closest approach to Earth. In my own opinion this was the best comet since Hale-Bopp twenty three years ago. NEOWISE put on a fine naked eye show as it moved into the northern circumpolar sky sporting a vivid highly condensed (D.C:9) coma and a wonderful dust tail which grew in length from 2 degrees to over 20 degrees or 40 apparent full moon diameters. Photographers from darker sites captured a straight blue type ion tail for 30 degrees; the comet was actually huge in angular extent.