Here’s how to keep your 3I on it.

With 3I/ATLAS slated to make its Earth tour in two days, amateur photographers and astronomers alike are scrambling to catch sight of the interstellar comet.

Our intergalactic visitor will officially make its closest approach on December 19.

Thankfully, despite the NASA-backed International Asteroid Warning Network‘s ongoing planetary defense drill, ATLAS doesn’t pose a threat — it will pass within 170 million miles before continuing its voyage through the cosmos.

During its approach multiple organizations have managed to snap photos of the cosmic anomaly. On November 30, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a deeper look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument as it rocketed through the solar system.

The European Space Agency’s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton observed 3I/ATLAS on 3 December 2025, catching it glowing red as gas molecules from the comet crashed into solar wind, BBC reported.

Fortunately, stargazers don’t need astronomer-grade space tech to get a bead on this celestial snowball, which will be invisible to the naked eye.

Telescopes outfitted with an aperture of at least 30 cm will be able to clearly observe ATLAS in the predawn sky until 2026, according to NASA. However, slightly smaller scopes — larger than 15 centimeters — may still catch the comet as a “faint smudge,” astronomer Qicheng Zhang told the Post.

The view will be clearer with a camera. “Cameras are more sensitive than human eyes, and can detect the comet through much smaller telescopes and more light pollution,” said Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow with the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizonawho snapped ATLAS in November. “But of course [viewers] would still capture more detail through larger telescopes under darker skies.”

Either way, the ability to capture ATLAS on portable instruments is pretty impressive given that it will be more than 700 times the distance between the Earth and the moon on December 19.

How will stargazers know what they’re looking at/for? “At this distance (ATLAS’ distance from Earth on Dec. 19), skywatchers looking East to Northeast in the early pre-dawn morning could catch the comet right under Regulus, a star at the heart of the constellation Leo, the lion,” NASA writes. To help triangulate 3I/ATLAS exact position, Zhang recommended employing “planetarium/sky mapping software like Stellarium or KStars that shows its position relative to the stars at any time/location.”

There are many other things in the sky that can look similar to it, and you’ll really only know for sure if you’ve seen it if it’s at precisely the right spot in the sky,” he explained.

For optimal viewing, experts advised going somewhere far away from light pollution.

“One option is that there are designated dark sky areas, usually in some conjunction with the National Park Service,” Michigan State University astronomy professor Darryl Seligman told the Post. “Those spots are amazing to do any stargazing, telescope viewing or astro photography.”

He added that there are also suitable dark spots in rural regions away from cities, observing that “the higher and drier it is, the better.”

“If you can find a dark sky area that also has a high peak that would be ideal,” he said, adding that it would behoove comet gawkers to check the weather forecast and go at a time when there aren’t too many clouds.

Space spectators who can’t find an ideal vantage point — such as in perennially light-polluted NYC — can still observe the phenomenon virtually via a livestream hosted by Gianluca Masi at the Virtual Telescope Project.

This skywatch party starts at 11 p.m. EST on December 18, beaming in real-time telescope shots of comet 3I/ATLAS snapped by its robotic observatories in Manciano, Italy, weather permitting.