One of the two bright comets due in 2004 is Comet 2002 T7 LINEAR (the other is 2001 Q4 NEAT, which we won't see until May, hopefully at our Star-B-Q when it could be magnitude 0!). "Comet LINEAR" is about magnitude 7.0 and is very easy to locate in binoculars over the next few days as it is very close (half a degree tonight and only moving slowly from night to night) to the bottom left star of the Square of Pegasus each evening. Look just to the lower left of Algenib (Gamma Pegasi). There is an article and finder chart in the March issue of our magazine that Astronomy Ireland members (www.astronomy.ie/sub) should receive in the post today or Monday. As the article explains Comet LINEAR will also reach perhaps magnitude 0 in May but it will not be visible from our latitudes during that time. Still we should see it brighten in evening skies for the next few weeks and the Moon is out of the way so try to view it each night in a dark sky. A tail up to 2 degrees long has been reported in very dark skies using 80mm binoculars. Comet LINEAR may brighten to magnitude 5 before it gets too low in evening twilight to see by mid March. Even by then it will still just about fit in the same 7 degree field of view of our ultra wide angle 10x50 binoculars (which many of you have bought from our Shop) as the chart on page 38 of the March issue of "Astronomy & Space" magazine shows, so this is going to be an easy to locate comet. Please email any reports or sightings, or photographs, to observe@astronomy.ie Of course there are four bright evening planets on view each evening also - see magazine for details. ===== David Moore BSc FRAS, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland, P.O.Box 2888, Dublin 5. Editor, "Astronomy & Space" magazine. Visit us at Ireland's biggest Telescope Shop. http://www.astronomy.ie/map.html Tel (01) 847 0777. Fax (01) 847 0771. www.astronomy.ie (Subscribe to our FREE emailing list) Email: info@astronomy.ie Click last line to change your subscription details: