[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

This has been in the news for a week or so now, with many "experts" predicting it might become very bright around Jan 8-10th in the evening sky as seen from the n hemisphere.

And, after several nights of wasting my time and freezing my fingers off, I'm happy to be able to report my first sighting of Comet McNaught!! Frustrated by great black pillows of cloud in the comet's direction last night, but a very clear WSW horizon tonight lured me back up the sloppy-mud covered track that leads up to Kendal Castle, and from there, at 16.49, I got my first glimpse of the comet. Phew!!

It wasn't visible to the naked eye - well, not my naked eye, anyway - but it is very, very easy to see in binoculars, its head a star-like point and an obvious (and very straight, I thought...) tail stabbing away from it at almost a 45degree angle. The head looked orange-yellowish in my 10x50s, and there seemed, when using averted vision, to be quite a fan-shaped tail sweeping to the upper right. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the comet in a darker sky because it started playing hide and seek behind several horizontal bands of cloud, but my last sighting of it this evening, at 17.05, was very nice... orange-grey sky, streaked with lines of cloud, and Comet McNaught glinting above them like a spark.

Here's hoping others had some luck tonight too!