Comet McNaught!

I SAW IT!!! It's BRIGHT!
It was yesterday (20070110)
After days and days of rain and cloud cover, I left my camera, tripod and the good binoculars at home. Then the weather suddenly cleared up. I picked up the bino I have in the back of the car and got out of the office and walked to the edge of the fields.

I knew that it was supposed to be close to Venus. First I couldn't find Venus. After a couple of minutes suddenly it popped into field. It is quite interesting that how bright stars suddenly appear in the sky, one second you can't see it, and then suddenly, they appear and you wonder how on earth you missed it. Venus was bright. I had a quick look at the Venus and then scanned the horison to the north of the Venus...

AND I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! It was so bright, it was a NAKED EYE comet, just after the sun went down and there it was, just brilliant and its tail clearly visible, at least a couple of degrees in length, in broad daylight! Unbelieveable!

If this comet was visible well after sunset, it'd be so bright, UFO nutters would go mad!

I went back to the office and collected John and Steve (his last day in the office). Steve was quite excited, John was his usual self and commented on the possibility of some nutters comitting suicide to jump to the Mother ship.

After a couple of minutes later, I was cold (the wind was quite powerful and the weather was cold). McNaught was only a couple of degrees above the horison and the amount of extra air made it dimmer, even if the sky was darkening.

I';m quite excited about it - hopefully the weather will get better and I'll start observing in earnest. This year, I promise, I shall observe the sky more often.

McNaught might be the brightest comet in 30 years. At least I managed to see it! I'm so happy!