Comet McNaught once more

by David Kingsley

The sky looked so clear this afternoon that I decided to try Comet McNaught again on a lark from work. Shortly after sunset I headed up to the third floor stairwell of a research building in the Stanford Medical School near Palo Alto. The medical center is located towards the western edge of Stanford campus, up against the Stanford Foothills that separate the University from highway 280 further west. I knew that the comet was predicted to set about 10 degrees away from the point where the sun went down. I leisurely scanned the distant treeline of the Stanford foothills with the only optics I had available ( a pair of 8x20 binoculars that are small enough to always carry around in a cargo pants pocket). With cars streaming out of the parking lots below, I couldn't see anything but a nice pink clear sky between sunset and about 5:15. I almost gave up but remembered that we hadn't seen the comet till about 5:30 yesterday at Santa Cruz. I went back to the third floor stair well about 5:25 pm to try again. And at 5:29, at almost exactly the same time we picked up the comet visually yesterday, there it was again as clear as day, located a degree or two above the rolling foothills. The head and tail were obvious even in 8x20 binoculars, looking a lot like the view from yesterday from Santa Cruz. The viewing window from this in town location only lasted for about 8 minutes (5:29 to 5:37). But the comet is clearly doable with almost no aperture, and without needing to travel too far either !

--David Kingsley