This is set up for the early morning hours on Feb 11th (when it makes it's closest approach).
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© TCampbell [SHARE LINK] THIS IS A LOW QUALITY PREVIEW. Please log in to see the good quality stuff. The challenges are
(1) even though it's at it's closest, it's still a "faint fuzzy" and will need time-exposures to capture anything.
(2) the moon WILL be up the entire time the comet is visible AND the moon will be "full" (99.77% disk illumination -- that's pretty full!) That definitely wont be helping.
(3) it doesn't move at "sidereal" speed (the same speed as the background sky appears to move -- really based on the angular rate of Earth's rotation). You can see where it is in the above image (but but it will start a little lower in Hercules earlier in the night (the green line shows it's apparent path across the sky over a 6 hour period... of course the sky moves with it so Hercules would also have been down low near the horizon at around 12:30am when i started the plot). But it will move against the background stars enough that if you try to track at sidereal speed the head of the comet will be severely elongated and not a fuzzy point.
This means that normal tracking methods (a typical tracking head) wont work. Some go-to telescopes allow for customizable tracking rates. I have special software for my LX200 that can track custom objects at custom rates (I can even track satellites as they pass) but I'd probably venture to say that "most" go to telescope mounts don't actually offer custom tracking rates (programmable to any speed -- usually they let you pick from among several preset speeds.) This makes tracking difficult if you don't already happen to own the right equipment.
Here's another simulated view, but this one taken from an imaginary point in space with the position and orbital path of the comet (in blue) and the positions and orbits of the inner "rocky" planets (Mars, Earth, Venus, & Mercury) to give you an idea of where it is in the solar system (also generated by Starry Night).
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© TCampbell [SHARE LINK] THIS IS A LOW QUALITY PREVIEW. Please log in to see the good quality stuff. I should mention that the most recent photos I've seen of the object are showing the fuzzy head but not really showing a "tail". Here's an article showing the comet photographed on Feb 7 (2 days ago) and again on Feb 8 (yesterday) and neither show a tail. Images taken about 2 months back show a gorgeous tail.
