A New Comet McNaught Could Be Seen with Naked Eye

By Nancy Atkinson - June 9, 2010 at 8:14 AM UTC | Planetary Science
Comet-McNaught_R1_NGC891_Chumack_hrweb.jpg

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A new comet with the familiar name of McNaught has just begun to grace the morning skies in the Northern Hemisphere, and it may provide observers a chance to see a naked-eye comet with a distinct tail. First images of McNaught C/2009 R1 show the tail shooting straight up into the sky, and this image was taken by amateur astronomer

John Chumack

from Ohio, who captured the comet passing by galaxy NGC 891 just before sunrise on June 8th. "I used a 5.5 inch telescope and a Canon Rebel Xsi digital camera to take this 15 minute exposure," Chumack said. "It also looked great through binoculars."

This is the latest comet discovered by Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught, who spotted this new comet on September 9, 2009. One of the brightest comets of the past decade also bore McNaught's name, Comet McNaught,

(C/2006 P1).

The new Comet McNaught can be found low in the northeastern sky before dawn, now moving through the constellation Perseus. This coming weekend of Friday, June 11, through Sunday, June 13 should be a good time to look for the comet, as we have a New Moon on the 12th.

However, it will be brighter later next week, as it approaches Earth for a 1.13 AU close encounter on June 15th and 16th. Right now, the comet is right at the threshold of naked eye visibility (6th magnitude) and could become as bright as the stars of the Big Dipper before the end of the month.

Since this is the comet's first visit to the inner solar system, it is uncertain how bright it will get, but skywatchers should definitely take advantage of this opportunity.

The comet's atmosphere, or the gas expanding from the comet's nucleus is actually really huge -- estimated to be larger than the planet Jupiter, and that's what makes this one a possible naked-eye object.

In addition to the sky maps at

Astronomy Magazine

,

Heaven's Above

also has sighting times listed,

Sky & Telescope has another sky map,

NASA's Solar System Dynamics page has a listing for C/2009 R1,

and

Cosmos4U has a list of images from the new comet.

Thanks again to John Chumack for sharing his image!

Sources:

Astronomy Magazine, Spaceweather.com,

John Chumack's website, Galactic Images

,

The Miami Valley Astronomical Society

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com