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!

Has anyone here managed to spot this potentially brilliant comet? It's VERY low in the sky after sunset or at sunrise but pretty bright. It will make a particularly close pass of the Sun and there are some suggestions it could be visible in daylight to the naked eye for a few days

http://skytonight.com/observing/highlights/5089276.html

I will always remember comet Hyakutake myself, it was the main comet of the last century. It was clearly visible naked eye even with surrounding city light and we did drive off about 2 km near the city limit and there we could see it was spanning half the sky. Before that I always thought the medieval depictions of large comets in the sky had been one exaggeration. But I was wrong, and luckily so.

Good that you spotted the comet eventually then, your work wasnt for naught then.

Hey sunspot,

I think we started our comet threads at the same time! I saw it tonight!

Nothing seen here... but it has been raining ALL day

What did it look like? Was it easy to see?

<clink, clink, clink> southern California light pollution & smog...I couldn't find it, despite clear skies. Maybe I'll try for a daylight sighting tomorrow; seems like there's a bare possibility for this.

Here is a list I made for my own amusement some time ago, of the greatest naked-eye comets of the last two centuries, visible to observers in the northern temperate regions. I used a points system as follows:

MAGNITUDE: 10 points for every degree of magnitude brighter than +3 (dark-sky; daytime magnitude gets counted separately)

TAIL: 1 point for every two degrees of length of naked-eye visible tail in dark sky

DURATION VISIBLE: 1 point for every month naked-eye visible in dark sky

BONUS POINTS:
2 visible tails = 10 points
5 visible tails (West 1976) = 20 points
15 degree long anti-tail (Arend-Roland 1957) = 10 points
curved tail (Donati 1858) = 5 points
'bright' tail (Daylight 1910) = 10 points
'brilliant' tail (Ikeya-Seki 1965, Great September 1882) = 20 points
circumpolar all night (Hyakutake 1996, Tebbutt 1861) = 10 points
Mag. -3 in daylight (West 1976) or Mag. -5 in daylight (Daylight 1910) = 10 points
Mag. -8 in daylight (Great March 1843) = 15 points
Mag. -15 in daylight (Ikeya-Seki 1965) or Mag. -17 in daylight (Great September 1882) = 30 points

1861 123 pts Tebbutt
1882 101 pts Great September Comet
1910 95 pts P/Halley
1976 90 pts West
1996 78 pts Hyakutake
1997 73 pts Hale-Bopp
1858 68 pts Donati
1965 64 pts Ikeya-Seki
1970 61 pts Bennett
1957 57 pts Arend-Roland
1910 54 pts Daylight Comet
1811 52 pts Great Comet
1843 50 pts Great March Comet
1874 46 pts Coggia
1881 42 pts Great Comet
1807 37 pts Great Comet
1853 37 pts Klinkerfues
1835 35 pts P/Halley
1957 35 pts Mrkos
1860 31 pts Great Comet
1911 29 pts Beljawsky
1911 28 pts Brooks
1819 25 pts Tralles
1854 24 pts Great Comet

Here is the same list in reverse chronological order:

1997 73 pts Hale-Bopp
1996 78 pts Hyakutake
1976 90 pts West
1970 61 pts Bennett
1965 64 pts Ikeya-Seki
1957 57 pts Arend-Roland
1957 35 pts Mrkos
1911 29 pts Beljawsky
1911 28 pts Brooks
1910 95 pts P/Halley
1910 54 pts Daylight Comet
1882 101 pts Great September Comet
1881 42 pts Great Comet
1874 46 pts Coggia
1861 123 pts Tebbutt
1860 31 pts Great Comet
1858 68 pts Donati
1854 24 pts Great Comet
1853 37 pts Klinkerfues
1843 50 pts Great March Comet
1835 35 pts P/Halley
1819 25 pts Tralles
1811 52 pts Great Comet
1807 37 pts Great Comet

Bill

...okay, so if his work was popular with kids and tasty would it be 'for McNaught'?...

Mongo: Truly a neat ranking system! Sure hope that we're all lucky enough to see a Tebbutt or better some fine day...

They do show up once in a while. There was a comet even more spectacular than Tebbutt in the year 1744. Discovered by Dirk Klinkenberg in Dec 1743 and studied by Philippe de Chéseaux, it was a bigger, brighter version of Comet West (1976), with no less than six tails visible at one point (see image here - five tails in that image). Klinkenberg-Chéseaux 1744 reached a magnitude of -6 and was visible in daylight, 12 degrees from the sun. Its tail attained a maximum of 90 degrees under night-time conditions, at which point it was about magnitude -3, for a total of 139 points (without any bonus points for a 'bright' tail, which it would probably have deserved), beating the 123 points of Tebbet 1861.

Bill

I've seen that rendition of the 1744 comet before...even more impressive when you consider that it's a recollection (probably from memory) of a naked-eye observation!

Sure hope that the Kreutz group has a few more of these in store...but, sadly, is this a realistic possibility? My impression is that most of the major fragments from the original Kreutz body (errant KBO, I presume), passed perihelion during the middle part of the last millennium.

There is a chance that Comet McNaught might make that list too. there have been 24 Great Comets in the past 200 years, for an average interval of 8.3 years, and the last Great Comet (Hale-Bopp 1997) was at its most impressive almost 10 years ago. Of course, this means nothing in practical terms -- but we are 'due' for another one.

Here is what comet expert John Bortle has to say about McNaught 2007:

START QUOTE:

As is usually the case for the physical development of a given comet with approach to perihelion, many variables are involved that can not easily be defined beforehand.

Because C/2006 P1 has been so poorly observed up until now, its absolute or intrinsic magnitude, as well as the variable "n", are still quite uncertain and the former figure is typically of great importance in the development of the tails (especially the dust tail). Likewise, particle size relative to sunlight pressure, heliocentric distance and the projection circumstances, all play major rolls in at least the dust tail's apparent length and curvature.

Should Ho be about magnitude 6.5 or fainter, then the dust tail is likely to be fairly weakly and with no more than a few degrees of its length visible in the bright twilight, initially projecting in the same relative direction as calculated for the ion tail around the time of perihelion. One might well expect an appearance similar to a somewhat enhanced version of Ikeya-Zang, or perhaps like Bradfield 2004 F4.

However, if it turns out that C/2006 P1 is actually a major comet, with an Ho around 5 or so, the situation could change rather dramatically (he says, taking a deep and hesitant breath!). In that case, a strong, high surface brightness dust tail is likely to form. And at the same time, tail projection circumstances and the small q should favor much of the length of any dust tail to almost overlap the ion tail for perhaps 1/2 to 2/3's the calculated span, before significantly curving off to the north.

Under the very best of circumstances, from a visual standpoint C/2006 P1 could become a truly spectacular object (especially when factoring in a major forward-scattering event), with possibly a degree or more of tail visible in the daytime, given a really good sky. The overall appearance might be similar to descriptions of the brilliant Comet Skjellerup-Maristan y in 1927, when it was viewed in daylight not far from the Sun.

Immediately following sunset, the comet's head would likely appear a dramatic yellowish hue, due to the strong emission lines of sodium, as would the beginnings of the tail, this often being seen in conjunction with major comets at small q. The intense, almost straight, combined ion-dust tail might be traced 10 or more degrees upwards in the bright sky, with both components becoming much longer as twilight deepens. I would speculate that the overall impression at that time might be somewhat similar to that displayed after sunset by the Great Daylight Comet of 1910, given that the tail projection circumstances happen to be so favorable.

HOWEVER, any such potential grand display is, at the moment, pure speculation. The next few days of twilight observations are likely to tell the true story. And remember, even if C/2006 P1 does develop dramatically, its display is likely to be rather short-lived, both because of the brief duration of the forward-scattering event and the fact that the comet swiftly moves away from the Earth after mid January. So...pray for universally clear weather in mid January!

JBortle

END QUOTE

Bill

In 1976 or 7, Comet West rounded the sun as a barely news-covered object with a rather small perihelion, and the nucleus split off several chunks, resulting in a massive dust release and spectacular morning apparition as it pulled away from the sun with a quite favorible viewing geometry. It's the most spectacular comet I ever saw, starting with Comet Bennet in about 1970.

Four great comet memories for me...

Standing in a lay-by (that's a small, off-road car parking area, for our non-UK members! ) with my long-suffering but ever-patient and understanding mum, staring at Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock on a chilly night in 1983. It looked like a round chalk smudge in the Little Dipper, very obvious to the naked eye and like a blue-grey puffball in my shaking binoculars. My first "real comet"!

Then 1985, Halley's Comet returned. I "found" it on Bonfire Night, (Nov 5th for our US friends), barely-there in binocs in a sky muddied and blurred with the smoke of all the bonfires burning in and fireworks exploding above my town. A shiver literally ran up my spine - it was there, The Comet, Halley's Comet, the one I'd read about for soooooo long - before I shouted "Yes!!" at the sky, causing a nearby dog walker to ask if I was alright... A month or so later I was asked, by her daughter, to go and show the comet to a very old lady who had seen it in 1910. I went up to the house, set up my trusty 3" Tasco reflector, and swung it around to the comet and asked the old lady to come over and look. To be honest, she knew nothing about astronomy, and to save time I could have just aimed at a star and defocussed it to make it look like a comet, but I didn't... and when she peered into the eyepiece a huge smile broke over her face and she started laughing... I asked why, and she said that her father had shown her the comet in 1910, as a girl, and had told her she's never see it again. "You just proved the old b*****d wrong for me, thank you!" she said. Quite a moment!

Then, I guess, it would have to be seeing Comet Hyakutake on a blustery night in 1996, standing in the shadow of one of the Lake District's beautiful fells at midnight. The sky was mostly cloudy, just the odd gap floating across here and there... in one of those gaps my observing partner and I saw a "beam" of light. Just a vapour trail, we agreed, as it was surely a) too bright, and too far away from the predicted location of the comet's head to be anything to do with Hyakutake... right..? Wrong. Soon after the clouds swept away and there was the comet, painted across the sky like a grey-green lighthouse beam, ridiculously, and I mean ridiculously long. Sweeping it with binoculars we saw brighter areas, clumps, filigree streamers and lines... just beautiful... never forget that...

Finally, standing in the centre of the ancient Castlerigg Stone Circle, on a hillside above Keswick, watching Comet Hale-Bopp rising up from behind another fell, tails first... it looked like someone was shining torches into the sky from behind the fell, the tails were so pronounced, then the head cleared the felltop and standing there, leaning against one of the cold, ancient stones, watching a Great Comet rising, no words were necessary. Beautiful.

McNaught has a lot to live up to...

Did anyone put any pictures on the web of the comet yet? They must have, but I didn't find any recent ones with a quick search...

edit - d'oh!
http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/~astrolab/mirr...e/ap070105.html


I clearly remember Hale-Bopp, but not Hyakutake... I was a bit young then and not greatly into astronomy.

There's a gallery at Spaceweather.com

Apart from the forthcoming SOHO views, does anyone know of any other spacecraft which are slated to observe Comet McNaught? Obviously, few will be able to look at it while it's turning past the Sun!


Bob Shaw

I recall being mesmerized by Comet Bennet as a young teenager. Unusual for me to have seen a comet in the east, as my boyhood home was built on the west slope of a rather large hill. My Bennet recollection was made possible by a timely trip across Kansas from north to south on our way to visit relatives in Oklahoma.

The comet was the highlight of the trip.


Bennet remains for me, my 'standard' comet.

http://spaceweather.com/ has a link to a pagefull of recent images of the bright comet in BRIGHT twilight. I'm trying to see it before I go to bed this morning.

Yes - according to this page: http://ares.nrl.navy.mil/sungrazer/index.php?p=latest_news, the STEREO-A spacecraft should be observing it later this week.

Let's hope Comet McNaught starts flaring up soon...
______

Michael Jager and Gerald Rhemann photographed comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) from Austria in twilight 45 minutes before sunrise on Jan. 3. Rhemann told SPACE.com they used 7x50 binoculars to find the comet. They estimate that today (Jan. 5) it shone at magnitude +1 and they expect to see it with the naked eye next week. Image used with permission.

space.com .Click to view attachment

merged the two topics - we were doubling up.

Complete cloud for the past couple of days here - not a hope in hell of seing the thing.

Doug

This is probably lack of sleep affecting my mental abilities, but how can the comet be visible at dawn AND at twilight at the same time? Wouldn't that suggest a north-south position w/respect to the Sun -- in wich case it would set/rise at the same time as the Sun? Well, more or less...

EDIT: Aaaargh... nevermind, I got it. Has to do with Earth's tilt so northern objects rise earlier and set later from the northern hemisphere, right?

Yes, the comet is currently about 10 degrees almost directly north of the sun, which means far enough north (like in northern Finland), you could observe the comet all DAY, since the sun doesn't rise over the horizon at all. This would require almost totally clear horizon and good weather, and the weather hasn't been acting nicely at least for me: almost constant rain for the last week or so. I guess I'll miss the chance to see another naked eye comet .

The comet is closing in on sun fast and in a few days it'll be off to the southern declinations and forever gone to us northeners. People of the southern hemisphere might get a good show though.

If it makes you feel any better, I've got clouds for the past few days as well. The last comet I actually saw was Hale-Bopp!

It's the same story here -- nothing but 100 percent cloud forecast for the next week to ten days. I also looked at the location of my parents (2000 km away) and they are facing almost the same forecast (with the exception of a possibility of partly clear skys on Thursday). Frustrating is the word, all right.

Bill

Its been cloudy for about 3 weeks here lol

There is a mutual exclusivity between transient astronomical phenomenon and the British climate - I'm sure of it.

Doug

Oh yes, you describe Hyakutake the way I did see it too, from your description it seems clear that also you did see it any of those nights when it passed closest to Earth.

The first comet I tried to see was Ikeya-Seki in 1968 (I believe it was). It flew too close to the Sun and disintegrated, if I recall correctly, and so the impressive display we were supposed to see in the northern hemisphere never materialized. (I think I have this right -- I was only 12 at the time, and all I recall really clearly is that I was never able to see the thing, which was a big disappointment at the time.)

The first comet I remember actually seeing was Bennett in 1970. I had received a small telescope (3" reflector) for Christmas, and so when Bennett became clear and naked-eye visible in the early spring, I was out in my back yard (at ridiculous-o'clock-in-the-morrning, especially for a 14-year-old) with my 'scope, looking at the comet. I never saw a nucleus; I think all my 'scope was able to resolve was the coma. The tail was well defined, though, and some very nice knots and streamers were visible, if fainter than I would have expected.

As for more recent comets, Hyakutake wasn't nearly as impressive to me as Hale-Bopp was. Perhaps we in the northern hemisphere didn't get a really good viewing angle on Hyakutake, but all I ever recall seeing of it was a fuzzy blotch in the sky with a tail that you had to look away from it to see -- it faded to invisibility if you looked directly at it.

Hale-Bopp, however... that was the most impressive comet I've ever seen. Its tail was also not as bright and noticeable as I would have expected -- after a certain distance from the nucleus, it was best seen out of the corner of one's eye. But in very clear and dark skies, it was an amazing site.

Especially from the air... you see, in April of '97 I went to England on business, and as we flew through the (very short) night along the Great Circle route up north of the Arctic Circle, I saw the most impressive sight I can ever recall: green curtains of auroral displays draping the horizon, with Hale-Bopp hovering barely five degrees above the horizon, its dust tail forming a great sweeping filament that seemed to flow up and out of the auroras, its ion tail flashing brightest of all, bluish against the green of the auroras.

It was a view worth the price of the trip...

-the other Doug

Doug:

Unless you TYPE IN CAPITALS, favour green ink and have been regularly IN CONTACT with the good/nasty aliens. Aha.

Then the weather is always *perfectly* clear!


Bob Shaw

Don't complain please, I'm the one that has too. I'm in Hawaii (Kawaii) right now and it's raining... and will not stop for another 3 days

Pah! Luxury!

Three days? Why, when I were a lad, it rained solidly all year. In fact, happen as you mention it, it rained solidly all year *every* year. Why, we were so wet that...

(and on, and on)

You can't hope to beat British complaints about the weather!


Bob Shaw

Not a cloud in the sky here I'll have to take a look tonight (no way I'm getting up that early tomorrow morning...)

Much more rain here in Kendal and I'm going to start building a big boat and rounding up pairs of animals...

Stu:

A boat? And animals? In pairs?

You had it easy...


Bob Shaw

Don't forget Spirit & Oppy. Bob, please NO comment on this, eh !

Man, here in Southern California I've got clear skies and an unobstructed view of the western horizon, and I STILL can't see it due to the <clink> smog/haze and light pollution!!!

In the spaceweather.com gallery, the furthest south it's been spotted seems to be San Francisco. the lower the lattitude, the flatter the line from sun to comet is to the horizon. It really needs to stick up at a high angle as it does in Scandanavia.

I saw the comet this morning and it is *very* bright, the sky wasn't very dark but despite this the tail was fairly long and easily visible and the nucleus very bright. It's probably brighter than Hale-Bopp ever was although this is difficult to estimate since the viewing geometry is very different, McNaught was low in the sky when I saw it, buildings and streetlights nearby and my memory isn't perfect.

They say it topped Hale-Bopp's brightness. Looks like folks in the southern hemisphere might be up for a spectacular show after perihelion. Meanwhile, still %^@!& cloudy here with a hole in the clouds here and there, but never in the right place.

I've seen it finally, I had to rescedule my sleep but now I bagged this one!
Its a nice one. And I think edstrick is right, for a second time we up in the north got one advantage. Halley was completely hopeless for us this time around (Hally of the year 837 are said to have been spectacular thought and comparable to Hyakutake which covered 120 degrees in the sky and a naked eye head 2 degrees wide to mention some fact), then after that treat Hale Bopp didnt get me exited at all.
Yet I concur with ugordan and Bjorn Jonsson MacNaught is a very bight one. To bad the best part will be on the souther hemisphere like with comet West that I never got a good look at. So far I can compare McNaught with Kohoutek - if memory serves me right.

Last night I had a dream I saw the comet

http://cometography.com/lcomets/2006p1.html

Correct me if I'm wrong but as Jan 12 approaches, conditions for viewing will become rapidly unfavorable? That's as little as two days. Those in the north who got to see it, saw it. Those who haven't, won't...

You're right, and I reckon - from using STARRY NIGHT - I have two more days to see it, then that's it, I'll have to watch it cross the SOHO field of view and then grit my teeth as I read reports from the s hemisphere. Forecast is promising for here for tomorrow sunset and Thursday dawn, so fingers crossed...

Magnitude -2 now!
Maybe we should try finding it in broad daylight?

It's definitely been photographed in daylight already....
http://www.pbase.com/terrylovejoy/image/72783444

I haven't heard any reports of daylight naked eye observations so far though. A bright comet will always be more challenging than a planet of the same magnitude because the magnitude values given are a measure of the total integrated brightness - all the light from a comet isn't emanating from a tiny disk.

Venus is an easy daytime naked-eye target if you know where to look, so maybe in a couple of days...

Comet McNaught 2006 P/1 Finder Charts from Skymaps.com

Comet McNaught is continuing to brighten and promises to be a bright comet indeed, most likely visible to the unaided eye. In the early part of January, Northern Hemisphere observers can view the comet very low in the western sky just after sunset. The comet will get progressively closer to the Sun each day eventually disappearing from view around 13 January. From mid-January onwards sky watchers in the Southern Hemisphere will be able to catch their first views of the comet just after sunset as it emerges from its journey past the Sun.

The following finder charts for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres show the location of Comet McNaught at sunset relative to Venus and the western horizon. Start looking for Comet McNaught a few minutes after at sunset by using brilliant Venus as a guide. You will require a location with a clear view of the western horizon. Even though the comet may become bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, a good pair of binoculars or a telescope will reveal much more detail.

http://www.skymaps.com/comets/index.html

Weird.. I had another Comet dream last night. And the sun has finally come out, might be clear later this afternoon and finally get to see it.

there's some sun here now finally. I'll try and have a look at sunset.