This time next year will be very exciting if astronomers are correct in their predictions. The most brilliant comet ever seen by anybody alive is on the way and should be at it's brightest by Christmas 2013.

The comet may possibly be as bright as the full Moon and it may become so bright it will be visible in daytime. Often predictions of comets' brightnesses don't live up to the hype but even if it doesn't this will still be a spectacular sight.

It is currently in the area of the constellation Gemini and is only visible with large telescopes and only looks like a tiny white dot. When it does start to become visible in the fall it won't be visible in the evening. Seeing it will require getting up past the middle of the night.

I'll be posting more about it later.

And by the way, don't worry, there is no chance of it hitting Earth.

Ooh! That will be cool. I remember Halley's. Hale-Bopp was even more impressive, took my telescope out to a friend's in Arizona for that one. Can't wait for this one!

This one will make Hale-Bopp look like a baby.

It's name is Comet ISON after the International Scientific Optical Network although it was really discovered by Vitali Nevski of Belarus and Artyom Novichonok of Russia on Sept 21, 2012. Due to a technicality they didn't have it named after them. It is anticipated that this may be the best comet since the great one in 1680. It will be visible with binoculars by early October and with the naked eye a month later if you know where to look and have dark skies. After that it will brighten dramatically and hit it's peak in late December a year from now.

It will be in the constellation Gemini from now until August and will then speed up and move through Leo, Virgo, Scorpius, Herculus (at Christmas) then Ursa Minor (AKA the Littler Dipper) and pass by the North Star before dimming and disappearing.

This will probably be the biggest astronomical story of our lifetime. Well, I'm old enough to have watched the first man walk on the Moon but this will be a different kind of big story!

I just was looking through some of these old threads. I've been an amateur astronomer for over 20 years and this comet prediction was by far the most disappointing thing in all that time. It's funny to see how I was hyping it up but I was only repeating what the professionals were saying.