Blazing a trail. McNaught’s Comet over Perth.
Back in 1986, there was a lot of hype about the “once in a lifetime” experience of seeing Halley’s Comet which appears every 75-76 years. I remember looking at the sky in the appropriate direction on one of the recommended days and struggling to see a smudgy star, which was apparently the Comet. (Although, after an extended period of looking at the stars, they all started to look a bit smudgy and I’m not sure if I did in fact focus on the correct one.)
So, when people started talking in Perth this week about McNaught’s Comet, I was a little under whelmed. That was until I saw it myself.
My first sighting was when we took Queenie and The Impossible Princess to a friend’s place right on Cottesloe Beach. We had almost given up fruitlessly searching the western sky (“just south of sunset…about 45 degrees above the horizon” were the detailed instructions I had been given) when Queenie spotted it. And what a magnificent sight it was. The full-on burning ball followed by a curved glowing tail. Exactly what I think of when I hear the word “comet”.
The second sighting was totally unexpected. We were returning to our hotel when I looked out the side window of the car across the Swan River and noticed the comet suspended above South Perth. Again, it was unmistakably a comet and this time I think The Impossible Princess actually worked out what it was she should be looking at.
