Astroblog: Comet McNaught Update

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Comet McNaught Update

Another great image taken by Tony Travaglia of New Zealand (taken on Feb 1, I think).

Comet McNaught has been difficult to see in the Moonlight, last night I could just pick it up by averted vision in my suburban location. Nonetheless it is great in binoculars. This image taken last night by Graham Parker in New Zealand is pretty spectacular, but does have a 69 second exposure.

Now that the Moon is rising later, the tail of McNaught should become more obvious, tonight I could see the comet as a dim streak an hour an 10 minutes after sunset, with about a handspan of tail. So keep on looking folks. If you have just come out of the house, you will need to allow your eyes to adjust for a few minutes. Doing some sweeps with binoculars will help you locate the comet while your eyes adjust.

I've got two more rolls of film to process, so I'll put up some more images later. (and I'm working on a post on the science of McNaught). Here is an interesting image of the head of McNaught. An, as a teaser for the "science post", here is an image of the striae, which I will explain then.

Labels: 2006/P1 McNaught