It’s not as impressive at last years Tsuchinshan-Atlas, but it might still be worth a try on the evening of 10/21. I saw it this morning, from the very light-polluted Phoenix area. It was just barely a naked-eye object. Hopefully, it will be better in two days. I’m going to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon, and try to get some long-exposure images, with my nifty new iOptron tracker. I was fooling around with it tonight, and it works well. If I get anything worthwhile, I’ll post back.
I have a telescope I got as a gift recently and haven’t used yet; this could be a good opportunity. Is a comet a difficult target to find for a first timer?
Stellarium is your friend. Download it, it’s free.
It’s a bit of a pain getting current comet orbits loaded into it, but there are instructions on the web.
That said, the comet will be 10-20° above the horizon, around 293° azimuth on the evening of 10/21, an hour after sunset. So, I would scan the area above the NW horizon with binoculars as soon as it starts to get dark. It should be naked-eye visible, but it’s not bright. Just don’t despair - it’s there. It should look really awesome through a telescope. Get it set up ahead of time, and pointed in that direction.
Oh, yeah - it will be close to (almost vertically above) Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the sky. So look for a very bright star, starting just after dusk, and as that sets, the comet will take it’s place. Important: you need a clear view of the western horizon. No, houses, trees, mountains, etc. Go find a hill that allows that view.
We live on a hill, but not the very top of it - so I’m not sure if I’ll have an unobstructed view or not. I won’t have a chance to go hiking after dark tonight, but I put the telescope together and see it has an attachment for my phone camera. So what I will do is take the telescope on the flat part of my roof, find the comet, and then view it through the phone camera while casting my screen to a tv inside the house where my kids can watch. I’d rather they be able to view the telescope directly, but climbing to the roof isn’t exactly safe for a 3 year old!
That sounds really great!
Good luck.
BTW - it’s visible for the next few days, in more-or-less the same part of the sky, so you might want to try starting tonight.
Heavens Above has a list of current comets already loaded, including this one.