To help you have a good viewing session:-

• Binoculars are often best for viewing a comet - comets can be large objects in the night sky and binoculars give a wide field of view.

• Comets can often be seen quite easily with binoculars before they become visible with the naked-eye - the orbits of comets are well known and if the comet is not visible to the naked-eye, you may be able to view the comet with binoculars.  The details of where to look in the night sky are published for comets worth seeing.  Scanning the night sky in the expected region of the sky often allows the comet to be seen as a fuzzy object alongside the sharper background stars, similar to the image below. You don’t have to be precise with where you point the binoculars - as long as it is roughly in the right region of the night sky. The fuzzy patch will show up as you scan slowly from side to side.

• Wait for comets to become visible - the best comets to view are the ones that you just look up into the night sky and see quite easily.  You may have to wait for a few years unfortunately from when they are first announced to when they become visible to the naked eye.

The image below shows background stars which appear as sharp bright dots in the view. The comet (Hartley 2) is a fuzzy region and slightly larger. A long tail is absent as I took this photo when the comet was still a long way from the sun. As a comet nears the sun, a long tail may develop (but not always). 

Things to be aware of when trying to view comets:-

• If a comet has been spotted in its orbit around the Sun, it may be over a year before it comes close enough to Earth to be seen easily. 

• Predictions made by astronomers about how bright a comet may become need to be considered with caution.  Many comets in the past have been expected to impress but have not lived up to hopes (like Comet Hartley 2).

Two comets that broke records in the 1990s

Comet Hyakutake - March 1996

On January 30, 1996, Yuji Hyakutake in Japan discovered a new comet using 25x150 binoculars! If you discover a comet first, you have naming rights - be in touch with the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT). Comet Hyakutake was recorded to have the longest tail ever seen - 3.8 AU or 570 million km!

Comet Hale-Bopp - 1997

Comet Hale-Bopp had been discovered in 1995 and I remember viewing the comet when it was just a tiny fuzzy patch in space. The comet grew a splendid pair of tails and its record was that it could be seen by the naked eye for a period of about 18 months - the longest time ever recorded. The comet was a magnificent sight as it moved slowly across the sky.