Comets: 2007 has been a good year for viewing comets.

Comet McNaught

	Comet McNaught passed between the Earth and Sun in January of 2007, making for a spectacular display in the southern hemisphere. Alas, the poorest view was at our lattitude, and seeing the comet well required a clear horizon, or in this case, and negative height horizon. The picture was taken on an Escondido hilltop, putting the ocean horizon below the typical observer's horizon.

Comet Holmes

Below is one of the naked-eye visible comets of 2007 photographed at three different times. The views are at the same scale, and comparable (in size) to what you might have seen in 10x50 binoculars. As of 6 Feb 2008, Comet Holmes was still viewable from our valley in a 7x50 pair of binoculars.

Green comets. We had two green comets that were visible in binoculars. Here is the most recent one, comet Tuttle:

	The tiny green speck in the middle is the comet. It doesn't look like much, but is was visible in a pair of binoculars (7x50) from our valley. Below is a comparison to the Pleides for brightness and size:

Comet Linear_c2006vz13