Magnificent!

mcnaughtcomet, originally uploaded by Randuwa.

This is a really neat occurance and this photo of it taken on January 19th at the Pucon Calafquen Lake sector of Chile is simply, well....worth repeating -- Magnificent!

Here's some background exerpted from an article on the website Space.com. Enjoy!

A newfound comet is about to loop around the Sun and might offer skywatchers a rare and fantastic view. But comets are unpredictable, and this one has a wide range of possible outcomes, experts say.

When Australian astronomer Robert McNaught announced Aug. 7 that he had discovered a faint comet on a photograph taken at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, it was a distant and inconspicuous object. But its orbital motion at once made it clear that this comet, officially catalogued as C/2006 P1, might grow very bright.

The reason for the great uncertainty stems from the fact that for the past few weeks the comet has been positioned at such a relatively small angular distance from the Sun in the sky that it has been extremely difficult to get good measurements of its brightness. Now, with a little over a week to go before the comet makes its closest approach to the Sun (called perihelion), just how bright it may ultimately get and how long a tail may develop remain to be seen.

Predicting a newly discovered comet's brightness has proven historically to be difficult, especially around the time of perihelion.

BUT! -- Or, "And now for the rest of the story....."

Comet McNaught has become the brightest comet in 30 years, according to the International Comet Quarterly at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Cool!