Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is putting on quite a show along the northeastern skyline in the early morning. One estimate says it is currently at visual mag 2, while others say closer to 1. Whichever, Fred Espenak posted that it is our brightest comet for us to observe in two decades.

On the morning of 8 July 2020 with clear  skies in the Great Falls region of Maryland and Virginia Jeff Kretsch took the photo shown here with the head and tail of Comet Neowise clearly visible in the morning twilight.  Suggest a 2-4 second exposure.

Bill Burton had a nice view of the comet using 10x40 binoculars.  He went to a local golf course to het a good view of the horizon. "Small bright coma with narrow wedge-shaped dust tail going straight up with a plasma tail on left edge of the dust tail..."

The Sky Guide shows it will be 10 degrees altitude at 48 degrees azimuth (northeast) at 5 am EDT tomorrow (and 14 degrees altitude, 52 degrees azimuth at 5:30 am.).  Sunrise is at 5:51 am on the horizon at 60 degrees azimuth.

A close-up of the comet at right is provided by Jeff Kretsch taken the morning of July 10th.  "I was able to see the comet visually at Country Side in Sterling VA. I carried my Celestron to a point where I got a horizon view, wasn't able to carry my tripod too - age catching up with me. So the wide angle has a lot of jitter but it shows nearly the visual appearance. I first visually saw the tail like a dim searchlight pointing straight up before getting the nucleus. This is a very nice comet."

Clouds are the biggest hazzard to viewing the comet in the Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland local area.  Bob Gardner from the North Virginia Astronomical Club (NOVAC) reported on the morning of the10th, "I saw the comet in binoculars from Luria Park in Falls Church, VA this morning, but clouds were a much bigger problem today than yesterday. I could see the comet through thin clouds intermittently, but it was covered by thicker clouds most of the time. Frustrating because the rest of the sky was clear."