Comet McNaught
Many of you are probably aware of the arrival of Comet McNaught. Here’s a shot of the comet at sunset in Seattle on Thursday January 11th, taken from my office with my crappy digital camera:
close-up:
While Comet McNaught is not much to look at in my crappy digital photo, it’s amazing one can see it at all. As the photo shows, the comet is sitting right on the western horizon, which implies that it’s close to the Sun. However, it’s difficult for such objects to be seen, since light scattered from the Sun swamps all but the brightest objects. In other words, you can’t see stars in the day time (especially in a well-lit metropolis like Seattle). The fact that we can see Comet McNaught means that it must be very bright indeed.
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