Comets making the show! Latest photos

Originally posted by kloejen
Great pictures. Thanks for sharing

I hope more pictures will be posted here.

Yes! I especially love the one below, where the two comets are visible in one sight...

reply to post by japhrimu

The caption from APOD today answers your question:

Two impressive comets will both reach their peak brightness during the next two weeks. Taking advantage of a rare imaging opportunity, both of these comets were captured in the sky together last week over the Atacama desert in South America.

Comet C/2012 F6 (Lemmon), visible on the upper left of the above image, is sporting a long tail dominated by glowing green ions.

Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), visible near the horizon on the lower right, is showing a bright tail dominated by dust reflecting sunlight.

The tails of both comets point approximately toward the recently set Sun. Comet Lemmon will be just barely visible to the unaided eye before sunset in southern skies for the next week, and then best viewed with binoculars as it fades and moves slowly north. Comet PanSTARRS, however, will remain visible in southern skies for only a few more days, after which it will remain bright enough to be locatable with the unaided eye as it moves into northern skies. To find the giant melting snowball PanSTARRS, sky enthusiasts should look toward the western horizon just after sunset.

Deep sky observers are also monitoring the brightening of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), which may become one of the brightest objects in the entire night sky toward the end of 2013.

My own meagre contribution of a comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) photo...



...with a cheap camera held up to the eyepiece of binoculars.
(and cropped, contrast enhanced)

Looks a lot better in real life.

Originally posted by alfa1

My own meagre contribution of a comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) photo...

...with a cheap camera held up to the eyepiece of binoculars.
(and cropped, contrast enhanced)

Looks a lot better in real life.

(Actually, thats pretty awesome if you managed it without a proper mount! I've been unable to get my camera out tonight )

reply to post by elevenaugust


Cool pics...!!

Well with all the comet talk and zombie talk going round lately, you know what's about to happen don't you..!?!

C'mon, every zombie movie starts with a comet passing by...

Wouldn't you know? The night it supposedly becomes visible up here in the northeast on the western horizon and that's the ONLY part of the sky that's cloudy! If it's doing this Sunday, I'm going to be very upset because that is when the news sites say it will be its most amazing.

Bump for the cool photos. And as a reminder.