McNaught from Santa Clara

by Alexander Avtanski

Yesss!!! Bagged the comet from the office parking lot in Santa Clara! Me and a colleague of mine, armed to pairs of binoculars (a 35mm and a 50mm), first spotted it around 5:25. Watched it until it went below the hills, around 5:45. Very nice view. Toward the end it was an easy naked eye object, even though my eyeglasses are with about 0.5 diopters lower than what they should be. This is definitely the first time I saw a comet getting reddish in color (scattering) before setting. It was that bright. Regards, - Alex