Comet ISON Wasn't Ready To Reveal Itself Yet

With just a small window of opportunity to glimpse the Comet ISON in mid-November with its rising just before the Sun, I had hoped to catch it on the early morning of Friday, November 15, 2013. Alas, it was hidden by low stratus clouds as seen in this view looking southeast from the Bowman Meadows housing development in Marion, Iowa around 5:48 AM CST. The -0.32 magnitude planet Mercury can be seen in the cloud cover at left center, and above and right of Mercury is is the 0.96 magnitude star Spica. Hidden between them is ISON. This image is a 22 second exposure at f/7.1, 1000 ISO and 18mm focal length. Several seconds of exposure was probably necessary to make the comet visible.