AfterTek

Nothing can keep dedicated stargazers from trying to catch a peek of the brightest comet seen in decades not below-freezing temperatures. There hadn’t been a lot of news about comet McNaught, discovered just last year. But as the comet moved closer to the sun, it brightened and word spread that the comet was special.

Martin Gutoski drove to a lookout about eight kilometres north of Fairbanks on Tuesday evening, when skies were especially cold and clear good comet-viewing weather, even if it was frigid. The amateur astronomer waited for sunset and watched as the sky turned salmon red and darkened. He turned his attention toward the spot on the horizon where the sun set.

Comet McNaught, discovered last year by Australian astronomer R.H. McNaught, is expected to remain visible throughout the Northern Hemisphere through Friday, when it will come to within 26 million kilometres of the sun and be obscured by the sun’s glare. After that, it will eventually emerge for people in the Southern Hemisphere to enjoy.

Eight hundred kilometres north of Fairbanks in Barrow Glenn Sheehan said he hadn’t heard anything about a comet until a colleague spread the word something was different overhead. In Barrow’s long, dark winter, something new in the sky is always welcome, Sheehan said. The sun set there Nov. 18, not to rise again until Jan. 23.

Mr. Sheehan, executive director of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, went out to take a look Monday afternoon. He said he wasn’t sure what the object was, briefly entertaining the thought it was a plane. NASA astronomer Tony Phillips said comet McNaught is the brightest comet visible from Earth in 30 years. It is six times brighter than Hale-Bopp in 1997 and 100 times brighter than Halley’s Comet when it appeared in 1986, Dr. Phillips said Thursday.