A newfound comet is now looping around the sun and is offering skywatchers a rare and fantastic view of something we’ll probably never see again. By all reports, this looks like being one of the great comets - certainly a major find for an Australian and probably the brightest in about 30 years.
Robert McNaught, a professional astronomer conducting the Siding Spring survey (near Coonabarabran NSW) reported his discovery of a new comet on Aug 7, 2006. This was Robert’s 31st find.
The best visibilty occurs on Monday January 15, with the comet starting to move away from the sun. The head will set about 39 mins after sunset. It is quite reasonable to expect the tail to remain visible up to an hour enabling it to be seen in a dark sky.
The comet will be brighter than the brightest stars, but it gets better. Due to the dust in the comet, there will be a brightness enhancement around that date caused by the comet being located between us and the Sun. This brightening, called forward scatter, should increase the brilliance of the comet so an impressive sight should be seen between January 12 to 16.
Indeed - The comet's brightness may possibly rival Venus (the Evening star) visible in the evening twilight at the moment just after Sunset.
By the evening of January 18, the comet has moved sufficiently away from the Sun and appears very low in the western evening sky after sunset. It will then move out into the depths of the solar system.
Rob McNaught has a great website with lots of info, pics and viewing advice for southern observers here: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~rmn/C2006P1.htmHere is another link from Nasa that captures the comets movements in front of the sun. To view this you will need 'realplayer' on your computer http://sohowww. nascom.nasa. gov/data/ LATEST/current_ c3.mpg
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