Comet ISON has an outburst - may be approaching naked eye visibility (just before sunrise)

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://earthsky.org/space/comet-ison-has-an-outburst

Many media are now reporting today (November 14, 2013) that Comet ISON has had an outburst. In other words, it brightened substantially last night and may now be becoming visible to the eye alone, in dark country skies. NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign agrees, saying:

… Emmanual Jehin from the University of Liege is reporting an outburst in Comet ISON, resulting in production rates that are double that of what they were a day earlier. The term “production rate” refers to the amount of different materials such as H2O, CO2, etc, that are being released from the comet’s surface …

It could be that the comet is now simply finally “turning on”. After all, it is now only 0.66AU (61,000,000mi, 99,000,000km) from the sun, and if it is to reach the [brightness] at perihelion we’ve always thought it would, then it needs to start brightening by an order or two magnitudes within the next week. So this could be really great news, and indicate that we are indeed going to have a nice bright comet in our solar spacecraft images in a couple of weeks time!

On the other hand, as always, there are caveats. Read on …

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Could be a big increase in news from now on....and all bets are off as to whether it is good or not so good (for we comet viewers!)

[Warpy]

1. Oh, well.

The southern Rockies are going to destroy my view of it. Hale Bopp was the good one, we could see that one high in the night sky with our unaided eyes.

[Capt.Rocky300]

2. Plus we have Comet Lovejoy to keep ISON company.

And, there are 3 others out there but they are not naked eye objects.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Updating - now naked eye visible, magnitude +5.4

http://www.space.com/23591-comet-ison-visibility-naked-eye.html