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Would anyone like to look at a naked-eye comet over the next few days? The full story's at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observin ... 75326.html

Amateur astronomers the world over have been stunned and amazed by the weirdest new object to appear in the sky in memory. And it's one of the brightest, too. [...] For no apparent reason, the comet had brightened about a millionfold to shine at close to magnitude 2.5. That made it plain to see even in the bright moonlight and through all but the worst light pollution. It looked truly starlike; even high telescopic magnification barely resolved it as anything larger at first. But within a day it had expanded into a perfectly round, bright little disk with a tiny nucleus as seen in binoculars and telescopes. It looked like no comet ever seen.

Kudos for anyone who reports seeing it!

COOL! Thanks for that spot.

Too damned cloudy tonight - I'll try again tomorrow

So, we're seeing it from the tail to the comet as it is going away from us, is that the way I'm reading it?

I'll take a look tonight and see if I see it. Should be cool.

The next time the Red Sox are in the World series, check the skys and if you see anything, put money on the Red Sox to win!

The comet's out between Mars and Jupiter so the tail, if one forms, is pointing away from us and you'd not see much of it - if it stays bright long enough you'll see it creep out to a sideways view but at the moment any tail is streaming away from the viewer.

Tails always point in a line from the Sun through the comet outward, it's the photon pressure that streams it. The direction of movement of the comet is immaterial. It's like old wind-driven ships with their pennant flags streaming toward the bows, nobody these days draws that right.

This is the photo we looked at in school today, it was an interesting topic to discuss on science.



http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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