The Great Christmas Comet of 2011, 2011 W3 (Lovejoy) Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=.../birthday_comet

Possible very bright sungrazing comet coming mid December - Comet Lovejoy C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy)

Information in the link above.

[Mongo]

Comet Lovejoy is no longer a daylight comet, so darkish skies are needed to see it with the unaided eye.

Basically, the orbit of this comet appears from Earth at about a 45 degree angle from the ecliptic towards the south. This means that at mid-southern latitudes, the orbit takes the comet almost directly 'above' the sun at sunrise, so that it will be visible (in the coming weeks) well before sunrise, in fairly dark skies. Therefore the contrast of the comet against the sky will be very good, and its tail will be quite visible (and indications are that the tail will become quite lengthy in the coming weeks).

On the other hand, at mid-northern latitudes the comet will be moving away from the sun in a direction almost parallel with the horizon at sunrise, so it will not even appear above the horizon until the sun is nearly rising (and turning the sky very bright), and remain lost in the near-horizon haze until full daylight. The contrast of the comet against the sky will be far worse than from the mid-southern latitudes, and it is likely that it will not even be visible to the naked eye at all, unlike the situation from the mid-southern latitudes where it is expected to be quite prominent in the pre-sunrise sky.

So we have had two Great Comets in a row (McNaught and now with any luck Lovejoy) best seen from the mid-southern latitudes, and poorly visible from the mid-northern hemisphere. Oh well, those are the breaks.