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. The most recent bright sungrazing comets were C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) in 2011 and, before that, C/1965 S1 (Ikeya-Seki) in 1965. Sungrazing comets, as the name suggests, pass extremely close to the Sun. This means they can be very bright, but move very fast, and are often visible for only a few days or, possibly, even hours. For example, 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).

If the weather in the first week of April 2026 is good, there may be a chance to see Comet MAPS. Perihelion will be at 14:17 UT (15:17 BST) on 04 April 2026, at a distance of only 163,000 km above the photosphere. At perihelion, the comet will receive approximately 41.8 MW/m² (megawatts per square metre) of energy from the Sun. Such a high energy density may vapourise the comet.

Want to see the comet? If it is not vapourised during its perihelion passage, it may become visible during 03-06 April in the wide field LASCO C3 coronagraph aboard the SOHO satellite. Images from the C3 coronograph may be accessed via the SOHO website or smartphone app.

It might be possible to view the comet on or around 04 April by holding your hand up towards the Sun to shield your eyes from direct sunlight and looking either to the right or 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.

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.
 

Bill Barton, FRAS

Original: emails 23 February; 01, 11 March 2026
Updated: 13 March 2026