Comet 2023 A3 was 1/10th of a degree from the star Alya, a beautiful double and the tail star of Serpens on 11/22 but cloudy skies prevented viewing until last night (11/25). The comet was about 2 degrees away from Alya then and so I used this star to find the comet. Alya is nicely split in a small telescope (22 arcseconds apart); both components are between 5.0 and 4.5 magnitude and are of the same spectral type (A) and white color.
The comet was found by studying the stars around Alya and forming a pentagon asterism. The bottom stars of the asterism pointed the way to the comet. This action is shown in the animation below.
