This is a great time to catch Lovejoy, the new year's comet

Backyard astronomers are in for a treat this month.

Comet Lovejoy, which has been tracked worldwide since the beginning of the month, made its closest approach to Earth on Jan. 7, at a distance of 43.6 million miles. Even as the comet moves farther away, it has entered a period offering the best viewing -- so bright that though Jan. 24, sky watchers can glimpse its green colors with the naked eye if conditions are good.

The comet -- officially catalogued as 2014 Q2, or Q2 for short -- was discovered last year by amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy from his roll-off roof observatory in Birkdale, Queensland, Australia, according to Space.com.

When Lovejoy first saw the comet, it appeared as a diffuse glow about 4,000 times dimmer than the faintest star visible to the unaided eye. At that point, the comet was located in the southern constellation of Puppis the Stern and was moving very slowly northwestward.

The comet is now performing far better than original forecasts had suggested. Soon after the comet's discovery, astronomers predicted that it would not get much brighter than magnitude 8 on a "backward" scale in which the brightest stars are magnitude 0 and 1, and the faintest stars visible without optical aids are magnitude 6.

On Jan. 3, Lovejoy shone at magnitude 4.6.

The size of the comet's coma (the atmosphere surrounding the cosmic body's nucleus) currently measures about 229,000 miles (369,000 kilometers).

No tail has been reported, although long-coexposure photographs have indicated a wispy, narrow appendage extending outward from the comet as well as a strong greenish hue within the coma due to the presence of cyanogen, a poisonous gas, as well as diatomic carbon. Both of these substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight. This is called "resonant fluorescence."