Comet ZTF E3
in the evening sky
1/21/23

 Now just visible to the unaided eye in the north east at around 3am, this comet is now moving to a closer encounter with the Earth on February 1st, and in a few days the Earth will pass into the orbital plane of the comet. Thus the comet currently displays 3 tails, the ray like gas tail on the left, the yellow dust tail pointing to lower left, and the anti tail pointing to the right. A parabolic envelope is now formed around the nucleus.
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Lens: 10" f/2.9 Orion Astrograph Newtonian Platform: Astrophysics AP1200 Camera: CMOS OSC cooled Exposure: 58mins Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 3/10, Transparency 7/10 Outside Temperature: 22F Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS