Looks like Comet McNOT for me :(

Many managed to see it from Griffith Observatory, where the altitude
helped to keep it above the horizon. My first daylight comet, albeit
through binoculars. I was surprised that even the tail was visible at
130pm through binocs !

Then the sun set, and it was unaided eye time, in strong twilight and
haze too ! In binoculars the main part appeared to be a disk, not
stellar, and the tail was a couple of degrees long !

Glad I got a chance to see it, and even image it, albeit wide angle
since I didn't bring my scope.

--- Dave


AustinMN wrote:
Clouds in the east in the AM, clouds in the west in the PM...My wife
says she thought she might have seen it yesterday (I was still trapped
between the skyscrapers in Minneapolis), but she did not have
binoculars.

Coments come and comets go. Between the cloud forecast and other
comittments, looks like this one is gone for me.

Austin

On 2007-01-12, Stan Jensen wrote:
[...]
As far as I know it's gone for those people north. I'm at 43N and
can't see it anymore, at least according to Starry Night.

And I never did get to see it. Stupid clouds here in Michigan. I've
seen dozens of faint, fuzzball comets, but the brightest one in the
past 30 years? Nope!

I only got one glimpse of it during clear skies on Wednesday evening --
unfortunately without binoculars. And it's been cloudy since then.
And I'm at 40 north, so it won't show up in my dawn/dusk sky after
it passes the sun.

However with all the comments from people seeing it in the
daytime sky, I have some small hope of catching it in daylight
yet if it clears up in the next day or two. Since it'll be
below and to the left of the sun at midday, maybe I can occult
the sun with a fat tree limb or something.

It's currently pretty easy naked-eye in broad daylight, so unless the
clouds never part everyone should be able to see it, regardless of
latitude. Use a building or some other object to block the sun and then
look just to the east of it. You should see a small bright spot, like
Venus, but slightly fuzzy. Make sure, of course, that the sun is
completely blocked to avoid damaging your eyesight. If trying in
twilight, start looking the moment the sun is completely below the horizon.

Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

To reply take out your eye

Greg Crinklaw wrote:
It's currently pretty easy naked-eye in broad daylight, so unless the
clouds never part everyone should be able to see it, regardless of
latitude. Use a building or some other object to block the sun and then
look just to the east of it. You should see a small bright spot, like
Venus, but slightly fuzzy. Make sure, of course, that the sun is
completely blocked to avoid damaging your eyesight. If trying in
twilight, start looking the moment the sun is completely below the horizon.

Thanks for reminding me to look for this. I checked at about 5:10 local
time (Santa Monica, CA), when it was about 3 degrees above the horizon.
(There are some trees in the way.) I followed it until it sank below
the trees, so as to take maximum advantage of the (slowly) darkening
twilight.

At the end, I could see about one degree of tail in my 10x50s. (I would
have used the C5+, but I had to climb onto the roof just to see the
darned thing.) The coma was of decent size (perhaps several arcminutes)
and the tail swept out a wedge of maybe 60 degrees width. The tail
stretched out for about 1 degree that I could see, though it was clear
that I would have been able to see quite a bit more if the sky were a
little darker. The tail also curved slightly clockwise, moving away
from the coma.

Nice sight--very impressive in the medium twilight.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

I (Brian Tung) wrote:
Nice sight--very impressive in the medium twilight.

I forgot to mention that once I caught it in the binoculars, it was an
obvious sight by the unaided eye, with even a bit of the tail.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

wrote in message
ups.com...
John Banister wrote:

So what's the furtherest south anyone has seen it? I couldn't find it at
33N, but weather only allowed me to try on Wed.

Barbara Wilson saw it at latitude 29.3N south of Houston. And the
geometry now
at all mid-northern latitudes isn't much worse than it was there then.
Don't give
up yet!

- Tony Flanders


It's been cloudy here northwest of Phoenix (33.6 North), but it FINALLY
cleared late this afternoon, and I picked it up right away with binoculars,
once the sun had set behind the White Tank Mountains...

Viewed it in 8X42 and 11X80 binoculars, and got a few images with my digital
camera, too...

I had all but given up seeing it because of persistent cloudiness at all the
wrong times, but got lucky tonight...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.6
Longitude: -112.3
http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21

Jan Owen wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
John Banister wrote:

So what's the furtherest south anyone has seen it? I couldn't find it at
33N, but weather only allowed me to try on Wed.
Barbara Wilson saw it at latitude 29.3N south of Houston. And the
geometry now
at all mid-northern latitudes isn't much worse than it was there then.
Don't give
up yet!

- Tony Flanders


It's been cloudy here northwest of Phoenix (33.6 North), but it FINALLY
cleared late this afternoon, and I picked it up right away with binoculars,
once the sun had set behind the White Tank Mountains...

Viewed it in 8X42 and 11X80 binoculars, and got a few images with my digital
camera, too...

I had all but given up seeing it because of persistent cloudiness at all the
wrong times, but got lucky tonight...

Colorado weather opened up yesterday (more snow today :-p ).
When I got to my observing site, a relatively high spot overlooking the
foot hills, the sun had just slid down behind low clouds.
Using 8x56 binocs, I spotted the comet fairly high above the clouds at
4:41 MST. Spotted it visually two minutes later. Naked eye, McNaught
looked like Venus seen through a thin layer of clouds with a hint of an
anti-solar tail. Two degrees + of slightly curved tail visible in binocs.
I'll try to see it in sunlight as soon as the sun is visible again.


Shawn