Comet Ikeya–Murakami is a short-period comet with period of approximately 5.29 years first identified independently by the two Japanese amateur astronomers Kaoru Ikeya

Kaoru Ikeya

is a Japanese amateur astronomer who discovered a number of comets.As a young adult, Ikeya lived near Lake Hamana and worked for a piano factory. During his employment there, he made his first discovery in 1963 with an optical telescope he built himself within his low budget...

 and Shigeki Murakami on November 3, 2010. Ikeya identified the comet using a 25-cm (10-inch) reflector at 39x, while Murakami used a 46-cm (18-inch) reflector at 78x. Photographic confirmation of the comet was obtained by Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero

Giovanni Sostero

Giovanni Sostero is an Italian amateur astronomer. Born in 1964, he is one of the leading members of the Associazione Friulana di Astronomia e Meteorologia . He is an honorary member of the Astronomical Observatory of Visnjan , too....

using a Global-Rent-a-Scope (GRAS) telescope in New Mexico. Both Ikeya and Murakami discovered the comet using manual observation through optical telescopes. Such visual discoveries have become rare in recent years.