Comet McNaught Success from Ireland !

And about time too! With all our bad weather. Hi All, Comet C/2006 P1 McNaught is now briefly gracing our dawn and evening skies, and after a long spell of bad weather, I finally got a chance to see and photograph it this morning, January 10th, in pre dawn skies, close to sunrise. After waiting for the comet to appear an ever brightening eastern sky, I finally spotted McNaught with my celestron 15x70mm binocualrs very low in the east-southeast at 7.51am local time, perhaps on one degree above the clear horizon against the backdrop of a bright orange sky - and what a sight it was !

I estimate the the comet was about one full moon width in length from nucleus to the faintest end of the very short tail, in all only a half a degree in length at best. This really is a very small comet, but what it lacked in size, it certainly made up for in brightness. I used the planet Jupiter as a guide, and made out that it must have been shining at magnitude -1.5 - the brightest comet visible in our skies since Hale-Bopp!!

For a brief period, I could see the comet with the naked eye, but only 10 minutes or so, before succoming to an very bright sky. A sight which I will indeed never forget! Do try and get out while you can to see this comet, it's worth the effort!

Details: Comet McNaught 10.01.2007 at 7.57UT, Canon 300D, 480mm lens at f9, 0.6 seconds exposure, ISO 100
Keith..

well done keith

Keith - nice shot. Can the tail be seen naked eye?

Great Keith, I hope to catch it in a sketch if the bad weather would ever ever ever get good.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Cool! What do you reckon the chances are of seeing it from a city?! Can't be many days left before we lose it altogether.

Nicely done Keith. I was looking forward to trying to capture it because this would have been the only opportunity with the bad weather of late. Then, all along that horizon was nothing but cloud for me last evening... :evil: