Comet McNaught is Now Visible in the Daytime!

Okay, this is unprecedented. The really bright Comet McNaught that I mentioned a few days ago is now so bright that you can see it in the daytime. It’s extremely close to the Sun, so you need a way that you can block the glare of the Sun, but still see the sky.

Find a building with a shadow that you can lurk in. Then look around the sky to see the comet. I can’t tell you which side of the Sun the comet will be on, because it all depends on where you are on the Earth, so try out a few locations. The comet should be about a fist-width’s distance (held up at arm’s length) away from the Sun, so it’ll be close.

The comet is now magnitude -5, making it the brightest since Ikeya-Seki in 1965. It it may get even brighter.

It’s totally cloudy here, so I haven’t tried it, but there’s a photograph on the Space Weather site.