The comet dominated the northern sky with its 10°-long fanned tail and bright coma. When I saw it on July 14th from a dark, moonless site my jaw dropped.
NEOWISE COMET MOVIE
Others liken it to E.T.'s finger, complete with glowing fingertip, from the movie E.T. My friend Burt said it reminded him of a light beam. With the naked eye it looks like a feather plume or crooked finger pointing to the horizon. Most observers, including those new to comet-watching, can trace the tail to 4° to 5° visually and about double that in a pair of 50-mm binoculars. The blue dust tail is faintly visible in 50-mm binoculars. A faint, broad fan of material is visible halfway up the dust tail to the right. At its far end it broadens to approximately 3°. At nightfall on July 14th I could trace the comet's dust tail for 10° with the naked eye from a dark-sky site. Closest approach occurs on July 23rd at a distance of 103 million kilometers.
A combination of factors are responsible for the apparent lengthening of the tail, including waning moonlight, the comet's current visibility in a dark sky, and its increasing altitude and proximity to Earth. Although NEOWISE has faded from magnitude +0.5 to about magnitude 2 since early July, its tail has been growing continuously, from a short stub at perihelion to more than 15° long two weeks later. It's all about the tail when it comes to public appreciation of comets. Comet NEOWISE, sporting both ion (top) and dust tails, arches over a home illuminated by outdoor lighting in Rice Lake, Minnesota, at 11 p.m.