Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth (Niall MacNeill)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Eridanus (Eri) · Contains: Solar system body or event

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Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

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Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

The whole of the new Moon period was beset with cloudy and rainy conditions. It finally cleared a bit just as the first quarter Moon was about. The illumination limited the detail I could extract for this capture of the comet P12/ Pons Brooks. You can see the light background and how tenuous the ion tail is against it. I couldn't darken the sky any more without losing the tail altogether. Besides, the slightly light blue has a nice aesthetic appeal I feel.
You might be interested to see the location of the comet with respect to the Earth. The first picture shows the position of the comet looking from above the plane of the solar system and the 2nd along the plane. The comet has travelled from above (north) of the plane of the solar system, through it to the south, which is why we are now seeing it in our southern skies. Since the dust tail is spread out along the trajectory of the comet it is clear that, looking down/ south at it from the Earth's orbital position, we are seeing the dust tail from behind and it is somewhat obscuring the head of the comet, although the green glow from diatomic carbon can still be made out. Since we are looking along the length of th dust tail it appears foreshortened and spread out like a fan. From the Sun's position at left, the ion tail streams away in the solar wind.

Final
Original
B
C

B

Description: Comet's position wrt the Earth at the time of capture. This view is from above/ north of the plane of the solar system

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Comet's position wrt the Earth at the time of capture. This view is along the plane of the solar system, north up.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9914860
PixInsight job	0G57GPJMGNLHTTDBSSAZFH250I03B768
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	04h48m31s.87
RA (top/left)	04h42m00s.57
RA (top/right)	04h48m50s.75
RA (bottom/right)	04h55m03s.77
RA (bottom/left)	04h48m13s.70

Dec (center)	-07°08′46″.9
Dec (top/left)	-06°32′13″.4
Dec (top/right)	-08°52′07″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	-07°44′55″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	-05°25′24″.4

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Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

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Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

Comet P12/ Pons Brooks - seeing it from behind as it moves south and away from the Earth

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