When will the exploding comet be visible from Illinois?

Question

Whats the best time to go out and look?

Answer 1

Tonight. Get some binoculars and scan the northeast (constellation Perseus) It is bright enough to be seen from anywhere, even downtown Chicago. The brightest star in the area is Capella. Look straight up from Capella with binocs and you can't miss it.

Obviously, the guy above me has not looked at it much. The comet halo is almost perfectly round. It is only a little smaller than a full moon. Naked eye it will look like a fuzzy star because naked eye, you will only see the bright core. With even the smallest telescope or some 7 x 50 binoculars, you will see the bright core surrounded by a round halo.

Yesterday, the comet halo became larger than the sun. It is 155,000,000 miles from Earth (1/3 farther than the sun). The sun and the moon are the same apparent size in the sky. That is why eclipses happen. So the ball of haze is the same size as the sun and a only a little farther away, so it would indeed look only a little smaller than a full moon.

Answer 2

Go out at 8:00 pm and look about 45° east of the North Star at about the same altitude. It is very faint, but it's larger than anything else you'll see in that part of the sky. Yesterday, it stopped getting closer to the Earth and began getting further away. It should be visible for the next few weeks. Comets are dry ice, water ice and dust. The cloud that you see is the "coma" or tail of the comet which consists of particles that are being blasted off of it by the solar wind.

Answer 3

It should have been visibly there, just like everywhere else on Earth, since the first day it got brighter. But it will just look like a normal star; an extra star in the constellation Perseus. If you don't know what Perseus normally looks like you would have a very hard time recognizing it, even if you were looking right at it. A telescope might show some fuzziness or a small tail, but not much of one.

After dinnertime, go outside, find a spot where bright lights don’t glare into your eyes, and face northeast. See the source for more details.

Answer 4

strategies? that is completely ridiculous to think of of this as something different than a organic phenomenon. the present 365 days is 2007. we could consistently are starting to be previous that style of uninformed superstitious worry reaction centuries in the past, and that i've got faith very sorry for people who have not. in case you advise to intend that Revelations 13 predicts a comet exploding, you're incorrect: it does no such subject. there is no longer something in there in any respect approximately comets or approximately explosions. Zip. Nada. no longer a single be conscious. neither is there something concerning to the 365 days 2007, or 2008, or 2009, or 2010, or 2011, or 2012, or the different 365 days everywhere on the brink of now. in case you have faith that a financial disaster of the Bible that would not point out comets or explosions or all and sundry year interior the early 21st century properly predicts the explosion of a comet interior the early 21st century, that is exceedingly sparkling what the actual subject is.

Answer 5

The comet is in the constellation Perseus and should be visible right after dark from your latitude. It gets higher as the night progresses, though, so if you have a lot of trees in your area you might want to wait until 10 or so to look for it.

This is just a TEEEENY little nitpick, but Comet 17P/Holmes didn't exactly "explode". It did release a cloud of gas and dust which is reflecting lots of sunlight, but the comet itself remains and will continue to orbit the Sun relatively intact. It would be more appropriate to say the comet "erupted".

Answer 6

The next clear night.