Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on the night of January 22/23, 2023 when it was in Draco, with it near the reddish star Edasich (aka Iota Draconis) at top, and
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on the night of January 22/23, 2023 when it was in Draco, with it near the reddish star Edasich (aka Iota Draconis) at top, and the edge-on galaxy NGC 5907 below the comet. To the right of that galaxy is NGC 5866, aka M102. The dust tail of the comet was showing a strong anti-tail spike ahead of the comet's greenish coma, as this was two days before we crossed the plane of the comet's orbit when we would see its dust tail "edge-on." The coma of the comet is strongly cyan or green from glowing diatomic carbon molecules, common for comets. There was little sign of the blue ion tail in my exposures this night. The comet was discovered in March 2022 at the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope, thus the ZTF name. This is a stack of 4 x 2-minute exposures through the William Optics 51mm RedCat astrograph at (so 250mm focal length) and with the filter-modified Canon R camera at ISO 1600. The mount was guided on the stars — in stacking just 4 exposures taken over 8 minutes the comet didn't move enough to significantly blur details at this short focal length. The field is 8° by °, so similar to a binocular field of view. The comet was easy to see in binoculars as a grey glow, and it was barely naked eye but only if you knew exactly where to look.
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Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: /2022, 2023, 51mm, 5866, 5907, actions, amazing, anti-tail, astro, astronomical, astronomy, astrophotography, comet, cosmos, cyan, draco, dust, e3, facility, gradient, green, january, luminosity, m102, masks, ngc, noise, optics, photokemi, redcat, science, skies, sky, tail, transient, unique, william, xterminator, zwicky
