[Yosemitest]

The Isonoids and Comet Lovejoy were both reported and crossed at ".627 AU" from the Earth, so that's point six two seven Astronomical Units FROM THE EARTH when they crossed paths (reported at 4 minutes and 40 seconds in BPEarthWatch's Dec 10 2013 ( 5:40 ) video ).

[Darksheare]

.627 au is roughly 58,283,291.2 miles.
That’s quite a lot of real estate.
And the angle above the ecliptic that is on is following doesn’t descend towards us or intersect our orbit.
Ison is climbing away from the ecliptic relative to our orbit.
This is analogous of an aircraft flying over your car at cruising altitude.
The debris of Ison is composed of dust, small boulders, and rocks.
Nothing “miles and miles wide”.
Tail disconnect event occur to comets due to particle density of incoming solar coronal mass ejections.
The particle density jumps from .2 protons per cubic meter to 10 protons per cubic meter or so, the comet tail gets torn off.
Analogous of cigarette smoke being “torn” from a cigarette by a puff of air.

[messierhunter]

I don’t care how far they were from earth, they were nowhere near each other, and ISON certainly was not “passing through” the tail of Lovejoy. On December 10th, ISON’s remains were a third of an AU away from Lovejoy, that’s over 30 million miles.