Bright Green Comet Easy to See This Week
A long-tailed comet at the height of its brilliance is streaking across early morning skies this week, experts say.
Comet McNaught C/2009 R1 has been steadily gaining brightness and will be most brilliant through June 16, during its closest approach to Earth at about 105 million miles (170 million kilometers) away.
Some predictions say the comet—best seen from the Northern Hemisphere—could be at least as bright as the stars that make up the familiar Big Dipper constellation.
C/2009 R1, already visible to the naked eye as a faint, fuzzy ball low in the northeastern sky, is best seen in the hour before the sun rises, said Anthony Cook, an astronomical observer at Los Angeles's Griffith Observatory.
"Because it has a hazy outline, it should be observed from as far away from light pollution as possible," Cook said.
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