Graham Palmer (New Zealand), Jan 18, 10:36 UT:


And also ...

Kevin Crause (Mossel Bay, South Africa), Jan 17:

I saw the first pic this morning in Sky&Telescope.
Edited: Opps, it was a different one, but from New Zealand too.
Really beautiful!

It reminds of a huge spring like the one in Geneve, specially if you crop the bottom of the image including the nucleous.

OK, now I have hemisphere envy

I always have had since I first saw the magnificent southern sky. But what they don't know is that something very nasty is on its way out from the centre of the galaxy to ZAP them all . . . . .

That Palmer's image is just.... WOW!
Another OMG moment! Those southerners always get the best shows, best supernovae, etc, etc.

I often regret having returned to the northern hemisphere but now I really just hate myself. All I saw was clouds. harrumph.

Holy #@%&!

We've been having a bit of evening cloud here in Sydney the last few days so I haven't been out to see it set. The clouds did part for us to get a glimpse of it about 30 minutes after sunset (and 30 before it set) last night at home and I was pleased to see that it is becoming more visible as it gets into darker skies (not fading too fast). But wow! I hadn't expected to see pictures like those.

James

Here's another stunning image from New Zealand.

McNaught's tail is extending over 14°!!

Andrew Drawneek, Jan 18, 10:12 UT:

Is that the Southern cross above the nucleus ?

According to spaceweather.com, the tail extends so far that it can actually be seen from the northern hemisphere an hour or 2 after sunset in dark skies. A 14 degree long tail... to think we in the north got a measly 1 degree tail is just unfair!

Streamers seen from San Francisco

No, that isn't the southern cross. You look over the whole constellation microscope. For example, the bright star on the right is epsilon microscopii.

An other picture taken at the Paranal observatory site, from Emmanul Jehin :


I will look for pieces of tails this evening (the sky is clear now...).

Thank you, my souvenirs was that the Southern cross could not be there at sunset at this time of the year + I didn't see Alpha centauri but it looked quite as the SC.
What a comet BTW

Gorgeous!!!

It seems material is visible over 90 degrees around the sun at least

Very impressive!

I do a quick processing (mask and curve) on the image to show the full extent of the tail.

Click to view attachment

Looks like the rooster tail from a big long powerslide on snow. You can actually see the trajectory draw out there - amazing.

Doug

Very impressive? Amazing?

Man! Thats <clinck> <clinck> <click> IMPRESSIVE!

Yes - feel free to rub out the word 'Victoria' and write 'McNaught' on your swear boxes in crayon.

Doug

The TV news this evening showed some amazing views of the comet as seen in Argentina... too much for words!

Thanks for the highlight, ugordan!
I went to a dark place and I took lot of pictures... while nothing was visible at naked eye, I saw this when I looked to the LCD of my camera:
Click to view attachment
Details: local time 18.26, lat=42.0N, camera=Sony CyberShot DSC-W1, exp=30sec, f/2.8, eq.focal=38mm, 400 ISO.

Wow! That's really cool!

--Emily

Saw it again last night, even though we lost it into cloud half an hour before it set and Sydney was quite hazy (not least from bush fires!) we could see at least 7 degrees of tail with the naked eye, incredible! Just me and 'science educator' Karl up at the Gap, he kept saying "We are SO lucky" I couldn't agree more! I just hope the weather holds for tonight now...

James

Big time hemisphere envy over here! Clear skies to all you southerners.

Spirit to give McNaught a go!

And Oppy too!

...absolutely incredible!!! Thanks for the heads-up on NH tail visibility; I'll try it tomorrow night from Los Angeles.

Looks like McNaught is verging on "Great Comet" status after all.

Wouldn't this be cool...?

Click to view attachment

http://www.spaceweather.com/comets/gallery...ught_page12.htm

McNaught's own image of the comet:



Perhaps the nicest I've seen, not only because he took it. You can view them all here:

http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~rmn/C2006P1new.htm

I am sobbing that I never got to see this one, though I know I wouldn't have seen anything like it is now up here.

It's turned into one of those things you read about in books, but know you'll never see in your own lifetime.



Doug

Saw it for the first time in Palmerston, New zealand on Thursaday 18th while on holidays there for 2 weeks. The land of the long white cloud is exactly that and we didnt get too many chances.
Got home on Thursday and drove to the top of Mt Saddleback about 10km west of where I live that night. Great view but a bit hazy, but last night was the best. The naked eye view was as good as the photo above, it was a particularly clear evening last night on the 20th. From the time it became visible in the sunset glare until most of it set was about 11/2 hours. Stood there in awe. Some members of the local Astronomical Soc. had telescopes set up and I was able to look at it through a wide field scope as well as an 8 inch Newtonian, through that, jets in the nucleus were clearly visible.
Crescent Moon was one day old and setting between McNaught and Venus. Truely a once in a lifetime experience, but alas all good things must end and weather predictions for the next few days are for a cloudy change and the moon will become brighter. I dont think I will get another chance.
Here is another of McNaughts own pictures and this is exactly what the naked eye view was last night

Thanks for a wonderful observing report abalone, much appreciated.

( When I say "much appreciated" I obviously mean I hate you for seeing it like that, when all I saw was a squidgy white spark thru a teeny gap in the clouds... !!!!! )

Northerners, fear not... our turn will come, you'll see.

Wow...the tail is visible from the UK too...!

Hi there!. I'm a new proud memmber of UMSF (lurking for about 3 years!). I'm from argentina and maybe today wheather will be nice to see the comet (again, luky me! ).

I have one question I couldn't google and would like to know. Why the comet tail is not continuous? why it looks like aurora borealis? is it an atmospheric effect? can anyone give me some insights on this.

I understand why it is curved, but I expected it to be more homogeneous.

Thanks!

Hello and you're very welcome. The streaks are produced by individual outgassing events. The solar wind (protons and photons) then streaks the material out, small particles farthest.

'The naked-eye view was just like these pictures'?... I definitely think that McNaught will be recorded as a Great Comet, then!!!

I wonder if the ISS crew has been able to catch a few glimpses, or ideally a few nice shots. If I were them, I'd be frantically thinking up excuses for a spacewalk right now...

Too much light here in Sydney to see the faint stuff. I just wish I had the chance to get out of the city. Still, can't complain it's still totally awesome!

Here's my best shot, we could see a little more with the naked eye.





Indeed. This was my view of it:



McNaught on the left, Venus on the right and the moon just above the city.

(Click each images for full size version (~400kb))

James

Kevin Crause has very kindly sent me his latest image of the comet to use on my blog and in my astronomy talks. You can find it here.

Unbelievable...

James, you took stunning pictures!
Someone else from Australia catch also ISS passing in front of the comet
And this one from New Zeland show incredible (de)tail(s)

...I'm picking my jaw up off the floor from Dilo's "(de)tail" pic!!!

Never saw a coma geometry like that before...looks like material's coming off the core in a perfect cone, almost like an ablation pattern. Is this just a perspective effect, or is McNaught doing something unusual?

[EDIT] Shooting from the hip, here, does anybody know if the nucleus' rotation period has been measured? This emission pattern would make more sense if it rotates very slowly.

This may be a duplicate of the Stereo Thread, though I think it might be worth linking in some of the latest STEREO movies in the January 23 news update at this URL:

http://ares.nrl.navy.mil/sungrazer/index.p...t_news#McNaught

Comet McNaught and Milky Way

Alright, now THIS is just being greedy...

Comet and aurora australis

(Stu hurls swear box thru window...)

Excellent Stu, keep them coming!

That should read

"Stu throws swear box through the f****** window"

Doug

Mine just melted from the words before I could put any more money in it... ...magnificent, is all.

I love this picture, thanks Stu.
(The aurora australis strangely recalls the aspect of the comet tail as seen from us northerns )

Okay...it's been a few days, nothing said. Is McNaught still putting on a show for our southern hemisphere friends, or has its spectacular apparition become just another one of the wonders down under?

Feb 5 APOD was pretty amazing.
Fireworks, Comet and Lightning all in the one shot, Perth Australia taken by Antti Kemppainen

Well today's APOD is pretty spectacular too...
12 February 2007

After all those great images, could someone point out a website where the size of the nucleus of comet 2006 P1 (McNaught 2007) is mentioned?

However massive the sparse phenomena of a comet's coma or tail are (spanning even significant parts of the whole solar system), the actual nucleus is very small in comparison. I don't think other comet nuclei have been resolved except those visited by flyby spacecraft (Halley, Borrelly, Tempel 1 and Wild 2). AFAIK even Hubble didn't resolve McNaught. Some estimates I see put the nucleus at under 25km size.