Thanks to Jenny Simonds for e-mailing us about this on Halloween Eve; we didn’t mention it last night because of the cloud cover, but tonight it’s clear again, so if you’re up late tonight or on subsequent clear nights, you might want to check it out for yourself: Comet Holmes has suddenly brightened. This article has lots of info and near-nightly updates. Jenny explains:

If you look northeast, maybe a teeny bit East of NE, you can see 3 stars that are almost vertical to each other. Apparently these are part of the constellation Perseus, for those of you who are familiar with Perseus. (They’re actually a bit more prominent than what the picture shows.) To the left of the bottom two stars there’s a 3rd star – but if you look at it closely, it refuses to be a point of light, just a tight smudge. That’s the comet!

Jenny offers another link about the comet, and also this handy composite showing how to look for it: