Close approaches

There are two interesting astronomical events coming up at the end of February, within a day of each other, and in the same region of the sky! First, Comet Lulin will be making its closest approach to Earth on the night of Feb. 24th into the morning of Feb. 25th. More comet information and good finder's charts can be found at Prof. Drayer's Lulin page and at Spaceweather.com. The comet is currently in Libra, moving toward Virgo, and will be in Leo at the time of closest approach. It'll be very close to the planet Saturn, for a nice double-feature.

Also, the dwarf planet Ceres (formerly classified as the largest asteroid) will be making its closest approach to Earth since 1857, and won't be this close again for many centuries! Sky&Telescope has an article on this. Ceres comes closest on the night of Feb. 25th into the morning of Feb. 26th, and will also be in Leo at closest approach. Seems like a good night or two to have the telescopes out! We're planning on having some out ourselves; I'll post an update on our plans as the date gets closer.