You’ve likely already heard about two comets visible from the Northern Hemisphere that are currently getting closer to Earth and growing tails — but have you seen and photographed them?

Although they can be incredibly unpredictable, comets are typically visible in either the morning or the evening sky. However, Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) is visible 90 minutes before sunrise and 90 minutes after, thanks to it being in the circumpolar night sky — the region of the northern sky close to Polaris, the North Star, which revolves around and around. Comet SWAN (C/2025 R2), meanwhile, is visible only after sunset, in the southwest.

The above image comes from Canadian astrophotographer Alan Dyer, author of How to Capture the Coming Solar Eclipses, who imaged Comet Lemmon on Oct. 9 from southern Alberta, in a clear, but moon-lit morning sky. It shows the comet's cyan-tinted head and the blue ion gas tail. It was just visible in binoculars as a fuzzy star, but only if you knew exactly where to look, reports Dyer.

Lemmon is in the northern and western sky, in the constellation Canes Venatici (close to the Big Dipper), but will remain rather low in the sky, never getting higher than about 20 degrees after sunset. Meanwhile, SWAN is in the southwestern sky, in Ophiuchus. Check my feed every day this month for a daily “comet tracker” with finder charts and tips.

As of Oct. 13, the Comet Observation Database reports that Lemmon is shining at magnitude +5.1 while SWAN has reached +5.9 — both technically visible to the naked eye from a dark sky sight, but in practice, binoculars are needed. Better still, a camera — even a smartphone — can be used to pick them up.

To photograph a comet, you'll need to use either a smartphone or a manual mirrorless or DSLR camera. If mounted on a tripod or similar, a smartphone’s “night mode” or "pro mode" will take a long exposure (likely 30 seconds) and probably find the comet. If your smartphone has a RAW mode, use it — but the tripod is critical.

Remarkably, a smartphone is also really handy to help you find the comet with a pair of binoculars, because even a handheld three-second exposure ‚— which most smartphones can offer — will reveal a fuzzy blob. "Aim the phone at the comet’s general location, and tap the screen to focus on the sky," reports expert skywatcher Bob King at the Duluth News Tribune. "Hold steady and take the picture. Once the image appears, note where the comet is positioned in relation to something in the landscape, like a tree or power pole." With that information, you should be able to find the comet more easily in binoculars. King also has an excellent report about both comets at Sky & Telescope.

To see either of these comets this week, you'll need binoculars. However, live views on the back of a camera are a great substitute for binoculars. "10-30 second exposures taken from a tripod-mounted DSLR set to a wide field of view should reveal the comet as a smallish green blob, with a spiky tail," writes David Dickinson on Universe Today. "That green is courtesy of cyanogen gas, a hallmark of comets."

Exact settings will depend on the time you shoot, the brightness of the sky, and the model of camera you use, but ISO 800-1600, f/2.8–f/4 aperture, and a shutter speed of 10-30 seconds are a good place to start. In suburban skies, try slightly higher ISO and shorter exposures.

Manually focus on a bright star (or the moon) using live-view magnification — or, at a pinch, set the lens to infinity focus. You should pick up the comet's tails, even if you don't see them.

Experimenting with camera settings is what capturing a comet is all about because settings at dusk will be different from those at night. Exposures will change rapidly as light levels change.

Focusing on a comet is tricky since it's a fuzzy blob, but unless you get a tack-sharp image, the stars in the background will be blurred, and your image will look amateurish. Here are four ways to do that:

Whatever you use, think about composition in a wide-angle shot, framing the comet above something interesting, such as a building or a tree — perhaps even a lemon tree (though probably not a swan).

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.