Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Leo (Leo)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
Comet ISON, Stan McQueen
Comet ISON
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Comet ISON

Comet ISON, Stan McQueen
Comet ISON
Powered byPixInsight

Comet ISON

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Description

This is Comet ISON, due to brighten over the next couple of months, hopefully becoming spectacular in December. It is currently just inside the orbit of Mars heading toward an extremely close rendezvous with the sun. Will it survive the close encounter? Don't know yet. It is not visible to the naked eye at this time. This is a composite image made up of 10 separate images combined in MaximDL. By my measurement, it is currently at magnitude 12.5, which is still pretty dim. The stars are blurred because the telescope is tracking the comet, which is moving, so the stars, which are not moving, show as streaks.

As we now know, the comet disintegrated upon reaching perihelion. This is the only image I managed to get due to cloudy weather after this was taken. I'm just happy I got any image at all!

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Comet ISON, Stan McQueen