Use this page for specific information on observing the comet between now and April 4. We will then update this page to include an analysis of the April and May viewing opportunities.

Skip to March 21 through 28 / March 29 through April 4

The comet is an evening object and is located nearly 20 degrees above the western horizon about an hour after the Sun sets. In the late afternoon hours of March 18, Ikeya-Zhang passes perihelion, its closest point to the Sun, just 0.51 astronomical unit (47 million miles) from the blazing solar surface.

Sunlight nearly four times as intense as at noon in the Sahara Desert will beat down on Ikeya-Zhangs icy nucleus for many days around this date. This will be the time when the comets ice will vaporize at its fastest rate, liberating gas and dust to ultimately form what observers hope will be a significant tail that will persist for the next several weeks.

As to how brilliant the comet will appear at this time, the best guesstimates currently have it brightening from fourth to third magnitude. It should thus be an easy binocular object and even a naked-eye object too. But an easy naked eye object? That is open to debate. A lot will depend on how dark your local skies are.

Beginning on March 14, another problem for comet seekers begins to rear its head in the western sky: the Moon. At first it appears as a lovely slender crescent, but in the evenings to follow as the crescent thickens and grows progressively brighter, it will eventually wreak havoc with its natural light pollution.

The Moon's First Quarter phase is on March 21 and Full Moon on March 28. Unfortunately, during this time frame, the evening sky will become increasingly flooded with bright moonlight, which will seriously hinder attempts to observe the third magnitude comet, which will be low in the west-northwest sky after sunset.

After March 29, Ikeya-Zhang will also be visible in the morning sky, very low to the northeast horizon in morning twilight.

The comet passes due north of the Sun on April 4, when it should be equally visible in both the evening and morning skies. It will then be seen about 12 degrees above the northwest horizon, an hour after sundown, and a similar distance above the northeast horizon an hour before sunrise.

During the middle of the night, the comet will duck down, out of sight below the northern horizon for a few hours. Since the Moon will be shifting more and more into the morning sky during this interval -- rising about an hour later each night -- it will be evening hours, when the comet escapes that interfering moonlight, which will be more favored for viewing.

The comet should still be hovering at around third magnitude -- at, or still very close to its peak brightness. But although Ikeya-Zhang is now fleeing the Sun, it is also heading toward Earth, so hopefully it will lose only a little of its apparent luster over the next few weeks as its positioning dramatically improves in the morning sky.

On the evening of March 30, the comet will pass less than two-tenths of a degree from the second magnitude star Mirach, in the constellation of Andromeda (as a comparison, the Moon is one-half degree in width). Use this bright star to your advantage to guide you to the comet. On the 29^th, it will be a couple of degrees to the left of this star, while on the 31^st it will appear a couple of degrees to its right.

Then on the evening of April 4, Ikeya-Zhangs path takes it to within less than two degrees of the Great Andromeda Galaxy.

With binoculars or a low-power telescope, you should be able to fit the comet -- on this night 51 million miles from Earth -- into the same field of view with the most distant object that can be seen with the unaided eye.

Andromeda is the brightest and nearest of all the spiral galaxies and without optical aid appears merely as a small elongated patch of fuzzy light under dark skies away from city light pollution. Yet this patch contains the combined light of over 300 billion stars seen from a distance of 2.9 million light-years.