At the time of the December newsletter, Comet ISON may already a news worthy item - or not. Comet ISON reached perihelion on Nov 28th when it slung shot around our Sun - just 750,000 miles above its surface at an astonishing 845,000 miles per hour. If the comet has not totally fragmented it may be a spectacular sight during the first week of December - or at least the tail of it will be, either just after sunset over in the SW, quite close to Venus, and also just before sunrise over in the SE and near Saturn.   

  
Stunning views of Comet Ison taken by Amateur Astronomer Damien Peach.

Should ISON live up to the early billing it will be easily visible to the naked eye -even in relatively bright twilight? If ISON is not as bright as expected, binoculars should still show the tail. This could be many degrees in length in the sky (20 -30 degrees?) equating to over 60 million miles. As the comet heads away it passes closest to Earth on Dec 26th some 40 million miles distant. From Dec 9th ISON will be visible solely in the evening sky moving up passed Hercules in the WNW and will be visible all night by mid December.       

Who knows what ISON will do - your guess is as good as ours.  Keep tabs on the media or visit www.whitby-astronomers.com.