SOHO result

You could see it easily with your unaided eye (but don't try!) if only Comet Machholz 1 were not so very close to the sun. This unusual comet, reputed to flare up a lot, is today sweltering only 22 million kilometres from the sun. This is its closest approach on an orbit that brings it back to the solar vicinity every 63 months. The best and perhaps the only view of it at this time comes from the ESA-NASA sun watching spacecraft SOHO. As an added bonus, Venus appears in the lower right part of the images.