If you watch the
morning or
evening sky these days and have a clear view of the horizon, you will be able to spot a bright object with a prominent tail. That object is comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught). It was discovered on August 7th, 2006 by the hugely successful comet discoverer Rob McNaught (Siding Spring Survey). At time of discovery, the comet was a very faint object, but the predicted perihelion distance (closest distance to the sun) of just 0.17 astronomical units indicated that the object has the potential to become very bright indeed.