Faster than a speeding bullet, brighter than Hale-Bopp, comet McNaught is streaking through twilight skies this week and may be visible through Friday.
The brightest comet in 32 years, McNaught was discovered by an amateur astronomer in Australia last year.
“This may be its first and only pass around the sun in a long, long, long time – tens of thousands of years,” said University of Denver astronomer Robert Stencel. “It may be in an open orbit, just bouncing between stars.”
Darrell Spangler, a photographer in Drake, near Estes Park, has been watching the comet for the past few days, shooting images now posted at spaceweather.com.
“It is an awesome sight,” Spangler said. “It’s getting brighter and brighter” as it approaches the sun.
Harvard University reports McNaught as the brightest since comet West in 1975.
Steven Lee, curator of planetary science for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, said comets are dirty ice balls a few miles across.
Formed 4.5 billion years ago at the beginning of the universe, comets spend most of their life in the cold reaches of the outer solar system, Lee said.
Random collisions among objects out there occasionally send a comet zipping toward the sun.
The sun’s increasing heat boils off frozen gases and dust, creating a tail that can be several million miles long, Lee said.
The best time for viewing McNaught from Colorado is in the evening through Friday, from about 5 to 5:30, Spangler said.
“Look to the west, and it’s just to the right of where the sun set,” he said.
For the next couple of mornings, viewers may see the comet in the eastern sky between about 6:50 and 7:15, Spangler said.
Binoculars will help, and experts caution against looking directly at the sun.
“This may be the best and brightest for years,” DU’s Stencel said. “It’s a great comet, but our chances to see it are fleeting.”
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
