C/2021 A1 (Leonard) is an inbound
long period comet discovered by G. J. Leonard at the
Mount Lemmon Observatory on 3 January 2021 (a year before
perihelion) when the comet was 5
AU (750 million
km) from the Sun. This is the first comet discovered in 2021 and has a
retrograde orbit. On 12 December 2021 the comet will be 0.233 AU (34.9 million km) from Earth and on 18 December 2021 will be 0.028 AU (4.2 million km) from Venus. It will make its closest approach to the Sun on 3 January 2022. It reached naked eye visibility in December 2021. At an
apparent magnitude of 4, it should be a good
binocular comet. On 10 October the comet showed a short but dense dust
tail. As of early December the comet has a
total magnitude (coma+nucleus) of around 6. The first reports of naked eye observations started coming in on 5 December 2021.On the morning of 6 December 2021 the comet will be about 5 degrees from the star
Arcturus. On 14 December 2021 the comet will be 14.7 degrees from the Sun and will quickly become better seen from the southern hemisphere. The
forward scattering of light could cause the comet to brighten to as much as magnitude ~2.
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