A Bright Comet is coming - Right now!

If you have watched the morning or evening sky these days, you may have spotted a bright object with a prominent tail - comet McNaught (C/2006 P1)! It was discovered on August 7th, 2006 by the hugely successful comet discoverer Rob McNaught (Siding Spring Survey). At time of discovery, the comet was a very faint object, but the predicted perihelion distance (closest distance to the sun) of just 0.17 astronomical units indicated that the object had the potential to become very bright indeed.

Nobody really knows just what this comet will look like at its closest point to the Sun... and that is where SOHO comes in! As you are probably aware, the LASCO instrument on-board SOHO has the ability to watch comets as they get extremely close to the Sun. Fortunately for us, comet McNaught is passing right through the LASCO C3 field of view - the spectacle has just started (January 12, 02:18 UT)!

story and photo at SOHO