The Comet Tail Seen Round the World

Yet even as the comet puts on a fantastic show now in the evening sky for viewer's in the Southern Hemisphere (McNaught himself produced a fantastic photograph), an incredible sight is still visible to seasoned observers in the Northern Hemisphere. From Colorado, Mary Laszlo of used a 20-second exposure to capture the outer extremities of Comet McNaught's tail on Jan. 17. Paul Robinson of Boulder was credited as having realized such an image might be possible.

s I stare at the solid wall of cloud that has blocked the comet these past two days, and promises to block it out tonight, I can console myself with some truly fantastic images taken by others. I've already posted the links to Rob McNaught's images, but they are worth posting again. Peter Adderly of Sydney has some terrific images of the extended tail.

The tail is a bit over two handspans long in the sky at the moment (about half the distance between Venus and the comet itself), this is astounding. It is so long that people in the Northern Hemisphere can see the tail poking up above the horizon after sunset. Here's another image of the comet from Chile showing the astounding extent of the tail. Another image from WA by Kirsten Harris from back on the 17th is nice too, and gives an idea how much the tail has evolved over the past two days. As allways, there are heaps of images from around the southern hemisphere at Spaceweather Gallery. Also don't forget the Ice in Space photogallery, with a huge range of Australian images.