There's been a lot of excitement this month among astronomers, astrophotographers, and sky gazers due to the unexpected arrival of Comet NEOWISE, discovered on March 27th (my birthday!) by scientists studying photos from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope. New comets are discovered quite often, but only occasionally do the orbits and conditions result in a comet bright enough to be easily seen with the unaided eye. Comet NEOWISE is the brightest comet to pass by Earth since Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Cloud cover, mountain fog, lots of nearby hills, and large trees have kept us from seeing Comet NEOWISE so far, but last night we finally had excellent conditions so ventured up the road to a spot with a clear view of the northwest horizon and an area we could safely pull off into. As the sun gradually set we were able to spot NEOWISE, first with binoculars and eventually with the naked eye. Over the course of nearly an hour we watched it become brighter against the darkening twilight sky but also creep lower and lower into the haze. This picture was taken on my Pixel 3a phone (thanks to the magic of Google's Night Mode camera).

You should definitely get out and try spotting Comet NEOWISE if you haven't done so already. While my wife and I were doing our observing a family drove by, spotted us, figured out what we were doing, and pulled over to see if they could see the comet too. We practiced safe-distance comet watching, which involved lots of pointing and verbal "star hopping" from brighter stars everyone could easily see, and they were able to spot it too. (The two brighter stars towards the upper right of my photo are the end of the bowl of the Big Dipper in the constellation Ursa Major -- the Big Bear -- while the two visible stars towards the left of the photo are the Big Bear's front legs.) You can click on the picture to see a larger view.

Happy comet hunting!! The Sky Live web site can help you find Comet NEOWISE if you'd like to give it a try, and a pair of binoculars will definitely enhance the view...