Comet ISON's Current Status - Oficial Update NASA/CIOC Nov.11

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) is now inside the orbit of Venus, and has only seventeen days left before it reaches its closest point to the Sun, on November 28, 2013. There’s an awful lot that could happen to ISON between now and then, and we really can’t say how things will go. All we can do is report on how the comet appeared to be doing the last time we saw it, and thanks to the legions of amateur as professional astronomers around the world, that was just a few hours ago! 

IMAGE:HUBBLE

It feels like we may have said this once or twice before, but it never hurts to repeat it: Comet ISON is doing just fine! It is maybe a little over a week since we saw the first few reports that ISON was a binocular object for fortunate observers with extremely clear skies.

But ISON has brightened up considerably since then, and binocular observations of the comet have become widespread. We’ve seen a couple of estimates of ISON in the mag 7 – 8 range and so it would not surprise us for there to be one or two naked eye reports later this week, though once again these would only come from a select few lucky observers with amazing views of the night sky.

But Comet ISON is moving extremely fast now at around 50km/s (180,000kph, 112,000mph), and will soon become increasingly difficult to observe as it approaches twilight skies. By far the best opportunity for naked-eye viewing of the comet will be in early-to-mid December as it climbs back into the night skies. Of course, this is all dependent on it reaching and surviving perihelion… 

CIOC/ NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign 

 Read more here: http://www.isoncampaign.org/Present