You'll also miss it if you hang around town. Comet McNaught is very bright for a comet, but still not all that easy to see. You'll have to head out away from the city lights and find a flat spot with plenty of horizon because the comet is only visible from Arizona right on the horizon, right at sunset and sunrise. Start looking east-southeast about a half hour before sun rise and west-southwest about 30 minutes after sunset. For a decent sky map and good info, click here.

And take your camera. Use a long telephoto, at least 200mm, a wide aperature (f/4 or so) and an exposure of 1-4 seconds, depending on the level of twilight. You can see some good photos of comet McNaught (named for its Australian discoverer) from the last few days right here.

McNaught first saw the comet in an observatory photograph back in August, 2006, when it was too faint to see with the naked eye, and there's still a possibility that it could become even brighter. Astronomers say the comet will pass within 16 million miles of the Sun – closer than Mercury. It's approaching the sun at such an angle that it's hard to predict, but the comet could eventually reflect enough sunlight to reach magnitude -8.8, about 40 times brighter than Venus.

The last comet this bright was probably comet Kahoutek, back in the 1970s. That one came with plenty of fanfare, including a lot of doom & gloom predictions for humanity – which apparently didn't pan out.