Saw Comet McNaught as well (9 Jan)

Very cool comet!

I just got done observing the comet as it went down over the eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range in Eastern California. Very low on the horizon but as arthur says, very nice.

I spotted it with my hand-held 8x50 Vixen viewfinder at about 5:20 PM Pacific Time, about 20 degrees west (to the right) of Venus and 10 degrees below, which meant it's down in the orange afterglow of the sun. Bright nucleus with a short, curved tail. I was also able to observe with my naked eye. Very cool! Not quite bright as Venus, but brighter than any other stars I could see in that direction.

I grabbed my Olympus camera that already had some film loaded, and took a couple of 10 & 15s exposures to see if I could capture anything. The photos will probably be washed out from overexposure, but it's worth a shot (oops, sorry for the pun!). Be a nice one with it setting over the mountains. Gonna try again tomorrow night.

Hope everyone else gets to see it! It's definitely misnamed (should be Comet McGrand) I missed the big comets of the 90s (my primary hobby was beer at the time being that I was in college), so it was pretty awesome to see this one.

-Jason

I finally saw it yesterday too. I found it between cloud layers about 5:30 p.m. CST and it dropped below the horizon about 6:00. Absoultely stunning comet through binoculars. I got this picture with my digital camera.

http://www.pbase.com/billhuegerich/image/72869695

Bill

Myself and another member of SLAS easily observed comet
C/2006 P1 McNaught from heavily light polluted urban skies
in St. Louis Tuesday night. Monday night my observing friend
Randy had already done so from the top level of a 5-story
parking garage in Clayton, MO (St. Louis County). I arrived
there a little after 5 pm Tuesday evening with a pair of
10X50 binoculars and a 76mm refractor. Shorty after I
arrived Randy showed up and we were set up by 5:15,
but the sky was still too bright to make it out
(sunset was at 16:57, Civil Twilight ended at 17:26,
Nautical Twilight at 17:59).

At about 5:27 pm I spotted it quite easily in the
binoculars. It was quite bright, not very large but
appearing very much like what one wants in a good
comet showing a distinct, unmistakable tail. Through
the binculars it looked very much like the images
posted on Spaceweather.com at

http://www.spaceweather.com/comets/mcnaught/09jan07/Loznak1.jpg

http://www.spaceweather.com/comets/mcnaught/09jan07/Cook2.jpg

I alternated between the refractor at about 20X, 30X
and 70X and found the binocular view to be the most
pleasing. The tail extended towards the NE and was
easily seen through a thin cloud deck - more so than I
would have expected. The tail must be brighter than
most recent comets that I've observed to be so easily
seen through the thin clouds in the west. I had a
harder time than Randy spotting it with the naked eye,
but once it was dark enough that could be done - if
you knew weher to look. It was not at all obvious tot
he unaided eye. We were able to see if for about 20
minutes before it got too low to observe at around
5:47pm.

I tried to spot it this morning but had no luck - it
may be too low to see in anything less than perfect
conditions in the mornings.

K. Michael Malolepszy

I stopped on my commute home today about 10 minutes after the sun went down (about 5:40) and didn't see anything but vapor trails from high-flying jets. I gave up after several minutes and continued my commute.

At 6:03 I looked west as I crossed the Ohio river in slow, heavy traffic and saw it! I looked at it 3 times before I passed through the steel framework of the bridge, but I'm positive I saw it.

As others have said, I saw a bright, even large nucleus and what appeared to be a forked tail. The clouds are moving in tomorrow morning, so this will probably be the only time I could see this object.