Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks (Guangyan (astrosymmetry))

Contains: Solar system body or event

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks

This beautiful comet is getting closer and closer to the sun and may make an appearance during the upcoming Total Solar Eclipse! Will we be able to see it then?

Before this comet sets too low in the sky, I managed one more attempt to image it. This image represents the most complicated processing I have done for any image so far, taking me several days to figure out, and ultimately required generation of 166GB worth of intermediate files on my computer to process! It pushed my computer to the limit, and I also learned many more processing methods. I will describe it a bit more in a subsequent post. Processing comets is very tricky since it is moving relatively quickly amidst the background.

In an attempt to escape city light pollution as much as possible, I went to the waterfront (facing the darker West) and managed about 1hr of total imaging before it dipped into the horizon murk. The night was one of the clearest in recent memory, and I was very happy to see so much detail in the comet's tail. The green glow of the comet is emitted by the recombination of diatomic carbon, and the white dust tail is simply dust reflecting light from the sun.

The first recorded observation of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks was likely in 1385 by the Chinese in the Ming Shilu records. It has an orbital period of 71 years, which means I (most probably) won't be able to see it return! Its next passage to Earth will be 15 August 2095.

Imaged on 17th Mar 2024

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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PixInsight job	n/a
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Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks

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