Comet McNaught Visible in Broad Daylight

AbsoluteXyro writes "As the amateur astronomers among us already know, Comet McNaught has been gracing the early morning and late evening skies... as it approaches the Sun, some estimate it has the potential to become 40 times brighter than Venus, or a magnitude of -8.8! In fact, it has recently been reported at SpaceWeather.com that Comet McNaught is now visible in broad daylight! From the article: "It's fantastic," reports Wayne Winch of Bishop, California. "I put the sun behind a neighbor's house to block the glare and the comet popped right into view. You can even see the tail.""

Comments

BINOCULARS WARNING - don't use in daytime

[jamie]

This may sound obvious, but DO NOT use binoculars during the day to look at objects near the sun. One slip and you get instant, permanent, crippling eye damage.

The linked stories do talk about binoculars, but they were written for looking at the comet after sunset.

I saw it! In broad daylight!

[The Bad Astronomer]

I can confirm this: I just saw the comet at 10:30 a.m. local time Sunday morning! Incredible. In all my years as an astronomer I have never seen anything like this. Using my binoculars I could easily spot it 5 degrees from the Sun. I'm trying to get video now, but it's so close it will be difficult. I made a videoblog about this the other day. I'll have to update it now!