The night sky is serving as a canvas for a rare vista with one of the brightest comets in recent history streaking through the heavens -- a sight that is visible with the naked eye.
Comet Holmes is nearly a million times brighter than usual, said astronomer Andrew Yee.
"Up until Oct. 23, the comet was so faint that you needed a very large backyard telescope and a very dark sky to even try to find that little dot," Yee told CTV's Canada AM.
"But then in the subsequent 24 hours, they had some kind of an outburst of activity. The comet ejected large amount of dust and that reflected a lot of sunlight so in that one day, it jumped from not visible to a naked eye object."
The comet brightened by one-million times almost overnight.
Yee said Holmes circles the sun in a long, oval orbit. Sometimes, when the celestial body -- which can be compared to a dirty, dusty ice ball -- comes close to the sun and is exposed to higher temperatures and increased radiation, it can fracture.
"When it picks up the heat sometimes it breaks apart and creates a crack and that ejects a lot of dust particles. And that's probably what happened in this case."
The comet can be seen in the Northern Hemisphere, and is best viewed about an hour-and-a-half after sunset in the northeastern sky, Yee said. It appears about halfway between the horizon and the point of the sky that is directly overhead, near the W-shaped cluster of stars known as Cassiopeia.
"To the lower right of that there is a bright star, and it forms a triangle shape of stars and the comet, if you look closely, is distinctly not a point, it's like a tiny, fuzzy object. That's what you see with the naked eye," Yee said. "With binoculars, you clearly see a blob, like a cotton ball in space."
Though the comet only recently became visible to the naked eye, it was discovered over a century ago, on Nov. 6, 1892 by Edwin Holmes, an astronomy buff who first observed the comet.
What makes Holmes unique, he said, is the fact that it brightened so dramatically in such a short period of time.
"I've seen other comets, but a comet that brightens a million times overnight, I've never seen one, and this might be the only one on record."
Astronomers predict Holmes will maintain its current level of brightness until the middle of November.
The comet was discovered in 1892 when a similar burst caught the attention of Edwin Holmes, an astronomy buff for whom the comet is named.
