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C/2011 C1 (McNaught)
April 20, 2011
It seems the past couple of years have seen a bright Comet McNaught and this year is no different. The 58th comet discovery by Rob McNaught and 74th from Siding Spring Observatory, C/2011 C1 was first seen on February 10th of this year.
Though intrinsically faint, the comet is currently being reported as bright as magnitude 9.0. CCD images taken by the author on Apr 1 UT confirm that the comet is between magnitude 9.0 and 9.5 at this time (see image below). Unfortunately this will probably be as bright as the comet gets as it passes perihelion on April 17 at a distance of 0.88 AU from the Sun. It is also slowly moving away from Earth with a geocentric distance of 0.95, 1.06 and 1.22 AU from Earth at the star, middle and end of the month. Comet C/2011 C1 travels the length of Aquarius before ending the month near the Pisces/Pegasus border.
