09:13 – The high today is to be 68F (20C), but that’s the last of the warm weather for a few days. Tonight is to be below freezing.
Meanwhile, there are not one but two comets visible in the pre-dawn sky, ISON and Lovejoy. ISON is very low in the east, and Lovejoy, which is nearly as bright, is considerably higher. Here are finder charts for the two of them. ISON is currently a dim naked-eye object, around fifth magnitude. Both are visible with binoculars. ISON has been hyped as the comet of the century, possibly to be visible during the day. We’ll see what happens. I remember Kohoutek, back when I was in college. It was touted as comet of the century, to be visible during the day. Technically, that was true. At maximum brightness, Kohoutek was brighter than Jupiter, which is visible during the day, if you know exactly where to look for it. But the implication of the news reports at the time was that Kohoutek would be as bright as the moon, which is 12 or 15 magnitudes brighter than Kohoutek turned out to be. Personally, I think these comets are a sign, sent to tell the world that Obamacare is a disaster.