Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS)

Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was discovered on January 13, 2026, by astronomers Alain Maury, Georges Attard, Daniel Parrott, and Florian Signoret at the AMACS1 Observatory in Chile, using the synthetic tracking technique.
Nothing to get too excited about - yet - but it will come within 0.005 AU's of the sun in early April. It could brighten significantly, though it will likely be too close to the sun for us to see. This is a Kreutz sungrazer comet, a fragment of the Great Comet of 1106.

William Optics 71 Star II f/4.9 Petzval refractor
ZWO ASI 533MC Pro camera
SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro camera

36 x 60 second exposures, processed in PixInsight