When I was about 14, Comet Kohoutek was coming by on it's 2,000+ yr orbit. I was in a car with my family headed south toward Delaware. The sun was about 25 to 30 derees above the horizon and it was in the late afternoon/early evening. At first I thought that I was observing the contrail of a high flying jet but the contrail seemed extremely long. Dad said it could have been the comet. Does anyone know if it was possible to see the comet at that time of the day being that the comet seemed about 6 or 7 diameters of the sun away?
2006-12-14 14:30:14 · 6 answers · asked by Awesome Bill 7 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The last sentence meant that the tip of the streak was about 7 diameters of the sun away from the sun as it appeared in the sky.
2006-12-14 14:43:07 · update #1
I don't really understand your last sentence. But if the comet was close enough to the earth there is a possibility you could have seen it in the daylight. Just like sometimes you can see the moon in the sky till almost noon.
2006-12-14 14:36:49 · answer #1 · answered by Grand Master Flex 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Comet Kohoutek never got very bright, so what you saw was not a comet. A couple years later Comet West did get quite bright and I saw it in twilight easily. Wikipedia says it was visible in daylight, but that must be only the head, because I could not see it after sunrise. I can imagine the head of a really bright comet being visible in daylight, just barely, but not the tail.
2006-12-14 14:51:22 · answer #2 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Kouhoutek was never bright enough to be seen in daylight (despite very optimistic predictions). I too was (temporarily) excited by contrails...
I even took lots of photographs of the right area of sky up to sunset, still no Kouhoutek.
Binoculars (dangerous that close to the sun). Still no Kouhoutek.
2006-12-14 14:35:48 · answer #3 · answered by Raymond 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes you can see comets during the day if they are close enough and bright enough. It sounds like you saw a contrail. Sometimes they can be very persistent, especially if there isn't much movement in the upper atmospere as far as wind.
2006-12-14 15:02:29 · answer #4 · answered by ~XenoFluX 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Comets bright enough to be seen in daylight do appear occasionally, but Kohoutek was not one of them. I think the last such comet was Ikeya-Seki in 1965.
2006-12-14 16:51:21 · answer #5 · answered by injanier 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Depends if there is little or heavy light pollution.
2006-12-14 14:57:03 · answer #6 · answered by Alex 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋