Cool! I saw Comet McNaught tonight

[cd34]

regrettably, the comet is too low on the horizon for me to see from here -- I suppose if I were further west near the sugar cane fields I might be able to see it.

Or, if I lived in a condo on the 30th floor and could get the city residents to turn out the lights for a few minutes.

I remember using a 4.5" Edmund Scientific reflector telescope with a clock drive when I was in high school on cool december nights looking at planets, stars, galaxies, etc. It was cool to look at the moon, but, even with the clock drive, it didn't take long for the moon to roll out of view and require adjustment again. You never really notice how quickly the moon is moving until you look at it with a stationary telescope.

The last comet I saw was Hale-Bopp, and before that was Haley's comet. For Haley's, I actually got to view it at an observatory an hour or so outside DC in the foothills of the Appalachians -- so, not much terrestrial interference to worry about.