ISON

I'm hoping that Comet ISON makes for a naked-eye spectacular in December so that the boys get to see a great comet. I still remember seeing Halley when I was a kid.

In the mean time the NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign is the page I'm keeping an eye on. With ISON so close to the Sun it's up to serious instrumentation to keep an eye on it (don't try it yourself). Two in particular are the ones to watch:

• STEREO. STEREO's ISON Page.
• LASCO on SOHO. (SOHO is still alive? Amazing). The SOHO webpage is down at the moment but the main NASA news has some of the latest SOHO-related ISON news. In particular there is a cool movie.

[SOHO LASCO image of the sun on November 27th, 2013, showing Comet ISON on the bottom right. Note that the Sun itself is blocked in this image so as to reveal faint coronal material, in this case a Coronal Mass Ejection towards the bottom of the image.]