Comet McNaught

There's another Comet McNaught swinging through our vicinity this month. Here's the Sky and Telescope write-up.

I got a pretty good view on Sunday morning from a dark-sky observing location in the Mojave Desert. I couldn't make it out with the naked eye, but it was easy in my small, rich-field reflector. It's also been report in binoculars.

In the low-magnification view, the comet looks pretty small but definitely has a tail. In my larger telescopes, both the dust and ion tails are easily visible.

It's nothing like the spectacular 2007 Comet McNaught, but it's been over a year, I think, since the last binocular-visible comet has been around.