Saturday, January 20, 2007

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No it's Comet McNaught which was discovered by Australian astronomer Robert McNaught on August 7 last year. He discovered the then faint comet on a photograph taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. On January 13, its orbit takes the comet within a distance of 25.4 million km or one sixth the distance of the Earth from the Sun.

The comet is going to be visible in the Southern Hemisphere for a few more days yet. I'd love to see it with my own eyes but I live inland and have issues with buildings impairing my view not to mention very crappy weather of late so I will have to content myself do with these terrific photos my brother took in Wellington a night or so ago.





This is the first picture "autocorrected" with my pathetic computer photo editing program. Isn't it pretty?

3 comments:

Lis said...

That is quite pretty, indeed. I've never heard of this comet. Course I haven't heard of many comets - hee! Your brother took some excellent pictures - thanks for sharing :D

Barbara said...

I didn't realise we could see it in NZ. My family in Australia can see it from there beach.

Catherine said...

I don't think inland matters. Some of the people at Symposium said they saw it from their motel. I tried on Saturday night but I didn't spot it - guess the cloud was in the wrong place when I was looking. Every other night seemed to be completely cloudy. My husband got good photos in Christchurch, when the cloud lifted for a short time. Maybe we will have another clear night before it fades from sight, but I'm not hopeful.