Update: Deep Impact — Collision with a Comet, July 4, 2005

Baton Rouge won't see it, but not because of the usual "clouds in the evening" problem. <br />
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At the time of the collision, the comet will only be 6&deg; above the western horizon. We'll have to hope that the ejecta makes a cloud that stays visible until the next night. No word on that – it may just spray out and be too thin for good light reflection in minutes or hours. <br />
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Folks on the west coast and maybe Hawaii should be better off for this show. I'll have to settle for pictures after the fact.<br />
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Another point that I haven't seen mentioned. The NASA site says that the comet will be 83 million miles away at the time of the impact. But, this needs to be put into perspective. Since light travels at a mere 186,000 miles per second, it is going to be about 4.5 minutes until the impact could possibly be visible.<br />
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The big questions are how big a cloud of debris will be ejected — so how much light will it reflect — and how fast will the cloud of debris be created. It may take minutes or hours to get a cloud big enough to be noticeable with binoculars, even after allowing for the speed of light.<br />