Miss this comet in NYC's skies, and you'll have to wait another 800 centuries to see it

New Yorkers should keep their eyes peeled Saturday, and for the next couple of weeks, for a comet that may be visible after sundown — although experts say it will be easier to spot it away from city lights.

The comet, known as C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is on track to come within about 44 million miles of earth Saturday, according to a NASA blog on the celestial event.

When the comet was first discovered by observers using telescopes in China and South Africa last year — approaching the inner solar system for the first time in documented human history — scientists thought it might break up as it passed the sun in late September.

“Comets are more fragile than people may realize,” the NASA blog quotes astronomer Bill Cooke, who leads the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, saying.

The comet survived intact, but experts say it could still be challenging to spot.

The best bet is to look toward the west just after sundown, ideally somewhere outside the city where the sky really gets dark, such as the Catskills, said Bart Fried, membership chair of the Amateur Astronomers Association.

“We have a lot of light pollution and on top of that, the moon is heading towards a full moon, which makes it doubly difficult” to see the comet in the heart of the city, Fried said.

Fried said several members of his organization attempted to view the comet Friday evening both inside and outside of New York City but struck out. Still, he said, patient observers could get lucky looking at the night sky between now and the end of the month.

While the comet could be visible to the naked eye, it has the potential to be “truly spectacular with binoculars or a small telescope,” according to Cooke, the NASA scientist.

NASA says once the comet disappears from view in early November, it won’t be visible again for another 80,000 years.

This post has been updated to correct Bart Fried's title.