Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich)

Comet MAPS is Coming!

A comet is coming. It is named Comet MAPS, officially C/2026 A1 (MAPS). It was discovered on 13 January 2026 by the collaboration of French astronomers Alain Maury, Georges Attard, Daniel Parrott and Florian Signoret, working at the AMACS1 Observatory in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The name of the discovery team, and that of the comet, come from the initial letters of the family names.

The comet is a highly unusual type known as a sungrazer. As the name suggests, sungrazing comets pass extremely close to the Sun and, in consequence, can be very bright, but move very fast, and are often visible for only a few days or, possibly, even hours. The most recent bright sungrazing comets were C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) in 2011 and, before that, C/1965 S1 (Ikeya-Seki) in 1965. A couple of hours before perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), Ikeya-Seki was estimated to be as bright as the first quarter Moon (magnitude -10); the next day, its brilliance had diminished to that of Venus (magnitude -4).

Comet MAPS reached perihelion at 14:17 UT on 04 April 2026, at a distance of only 163,000 km above the photosphere. Weather in the UK before perihelion was not favourable, and the magnitude of the comet was in line with predictions, so no naked eye observations were reported in the UK before perihelion.

At perihelion, the comet received approximately 41.8 MW/m² (megawatts per square metre) of energy from the Sun. Such a high energy density may vapourise the comet.

If the comet is not vapourised during its perihelion passage, it may be visible for a few days after 04 April. To see the comet at this time, if it is visible, try holding your hand up towards the Sun to shield your eyes from direct sunlight and look to the left of your palm. It is not advisable to point a telescope toward the comet while it appears close in the sky to the Sun: the danger is too great of the instrument being knocked and pointing directly at the Sun, or of off-axis heat from the Sun causing damage to the interior of the telescope tube.

Alternatively, you can access images from the LASCO C3 coronograph aboard the SOHO spacecraft (see below for an explanation of abbreviations) via the SOHO website or smartphone app. The instrument showed the comet at 23:06 UT on 03 April, on approach to perihelion: see below image, which suggests that the magnitude of the comet is circa -2, brighter than Saturn (magnitude 0.9, the planet has just left the field of view of the coronograph following solar conjunction), but not as bright as Venus (magnitude -3.9).

Ephemerides (tables of predictions) for the comet, for 20 March - 13 April, and hourly throughout 04 April, are available from Dominic Ford’s "in-the-sky" website and are reproduced below.

Event details are computed for Ipswich (latitude 52.06°N, longitude 1.16°E). Positions are J2000.0.
 

Terminology:

• SOHO is the the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a joint NASA/ESA spacecraft launched in December 1995.
• LASCO is the Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph, one of 11 instruments aboard SOHO. LASCO C3 is a set of three coronographs which image the solar corona from 1.1 to 32 solar radii, i.e. 800,000-22,500,000 km.

Bill Barton, FRAS

Original: emails 23 February; 01, 11 March; 04 April 2026
Updated: 05 April 2026