MexicoDoug and all. I can still see it with the naked eye! The sky is crystal blue today. It is just below and somewhat left of the the sun about 9 degrees or so. Venus can also be spotted to the east about 5 fist lengths away (40 to 50 degrees?) away from the sun. But it is hard to tell the distance in daylight. (I should have made a graduated cross-bow for daylight observations to ascertain the scale) The comet head is just about as bright as Venus maybe more. If one really looks at it you might just get a trace of the tail. As for the magnitude of Venus at this time (-2.x?) I will have to look it up on star charts to find out for this date. Also, for seeing Comet McNaught after the sun goes down here in AZ I don't think is possible as it sets before the sun and the tail points downward and toward the south. So it is a daylight object for us here in the US and the north. What is amazing about my observations over from the 15th to today, the 18th, is that it has moved so fast! I can actually trace its orbit around the sun over these days. It's great to live in Flagstaff with the clear sky (when it is not snowing as it did on the 12th to the 14th, the best days to have seen this daylight comet.) But I am extremely happy to have seen this event. I missed Ikeya Seki as it zipped around the sun, simply because no one told me how to look for it. My friends that actually saw it, saw it by accident when they were walking in the shade. The tail was 2 or more degrees long and tightly curved as Ikeya Seki zipped around the sun at 500,000 mph! Within the course of an hour or so it was out of sight during the day. It was an event in my life that I lamented to have missed every-time I thought on it. The Great Leonid display of 1966 too, having been washed out for that very night and that night alone with a thunderstorm. But seeing this comet in broad daylight, and moving in its orbit over the course of 4 days is very satisfying indeed. Steve Schoner IMCA #4470
-- "MexicoDoug" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "This brings up a question to all. Did anyone down south of the equator see this [comet] in broad daylight from 01/12 to 01/16? All the reports I have thus far seen are from the north. It should have been easily seen in broad daylight down there as the sun would be higher in a blue sky." Hello Steve, Please correct me if I've not understood your statement but, this is not appreciably true. Lets say you have in 2 km elevation Flagstaff a view with the Sun at 33º high in the sky (only one third above the horizon=0º to the zenith=90º). And lets compare that to a location down south near the tropic of Capricorn (where the Sun is at a neckbreaking 88º altitude, basically at the zenith). Call that place Rio's Ipanema Beach, at sea level. Both locations have a similar loss of magnitude, just about 0.3. Actually Flagstaff is a little better off by a few percent. So in both places, the comet would appear to be -4.7 magnitude instead of the true e.g., -5.0, from sitting on top of the atmosphere like Hubble. The point is, with something this bright, the difference is much more sensitive to other things and you have minimal loss. Even if the comet were at the exact zenith and you were 2,000 meters above Rio, you would still lose 0.2 magnitudes - after all you can only do so well from the soup we live in and it is a light contaminated, polluted muck once you are outside the fishbowl looking in... The moral of this is that few people in Arizona (well, Phoenix probably realizes the way it was) and New Mexico know just how uniquely lucky they are. When we start to factor seeing, dust and humidity into the equation you guys are basically on the top of the world as you have an especially cooperative airmass on top of you. Plus, I suspect that the greater magnitude of the Sun in a zenith situation - takes its toll on contrast with our poor eyes as well making it at best a wash. Btw, plenty of folks saw it in the Southern Hemisphere during the day and twilight, though everyone had to put up with the same 5-7º angular separation from the Sun from our little Blue Spaceship Dot, the comet being 120 million kilometers away. The tail has improved somewhat apparently. (Thus - Arizona highlands was just about the finest place to be, all things considered). It apparently gave the Ozies quite a show in Perth last evening - like you northerners had. But the Northern hemisphere really got first dibs on this comet. Did you know if you were in Barrow, Alaska you could have watched the comet rise and set from about 9 am to 5 pm every day for the first two weeks of January - and even had to worry about the Sun, because it won't be rising there until say, January 23. Might be a wee bit nippy, but I think that the coinciding of a comet rising and setting instead of the Sun is the stuff of legends that turn men's bones into stones...And, we're meteorite hunters (I read Gallant's book, too and am a little hyper), the (-) 26º below zero FAHRENHEIT (-32ºC) right now would be good practice for Antarctica, or maybe even Dave's Wyoming... It got up to -14ºF (-26ºC) yesterday in Barrow which was typical for the high-noon comet a few days earlier. Good health, Doug PS, you can still see the Comet's tail after Sunset from your skies - hope you check this out. Did you know the Comet is the largest object in the Solar System at the moment, a mere 10-20 million kilometers long and with a tail wider than the Sun? From: "Steve Schoner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 9:32 AM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] COMET McNAUGHT IS STILL VISIBLE IN DAYLIGHT! Hello all, Don't know why my report of my last daylight sighting of this comet (01/16/07) did not go through, so I post again. I was very impressed to have spotted it yesterday in Flagstaff's clear blue skies, and I had some of my co-workers come out and confirm my sightings. They were just as amazed as me to have seen it. I also pointed out Venus well to the left and up above it which they also spotted as well. They were amazed that I pointed it out as they had no idea that one could actually see a planet in broad daylight. In regards to Comet McNaught the "forward scatter" is rapidly vanishing and it is very unlikely that it will be seen today by anyone in broad daylight (unless you are on a very high mountain with very clear skies). I will give it my last try this afternoon. If I can't see it with my naked eyes, I won't try with binoculars as it is too dangerous to look anywhere near the sun. This brings up a question to all. Did anyone down south of the equator see this in broad daylight from 01/12 to 01/16? All the reports I have thus far seen are from the north. It should have been easily seen in broad daylight down there as the sun would be higher in a blue sky. Steve Schoner IMCA #4470
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