Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Solar system body or event
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Comet C/2017 T2 (panSTARRS) - A Cosmic Green Snowball., Taman
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Comet C/2017 T2 (panSTARRS) - A Cosmic Green Snowball.

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Comet C/2017 T2 (panSTARRS) - A Cosmic Green Snowball., Taman
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Comet C/2017 T2 (panSTARRS) - A Cosmic Green Snowball.

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Description

Comet C/2017 T2 (panSTARRS).

This spectacular comet was discovered in 2017 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii. It reached perihelion (closest to the Sun) on May 4th 2020 and was just over 154 million miles from Earth and on its way out of the solar system when I finally got to see it. Estimated magnitude about 8.5.

How to process this was a problem! Due to the movement of the comet, there was very heavy star trailing. I wanted to show the beautiful star field as well, without leaving streaks all over the image. I ended up splitting the stack of 60s lights into 6 parts, stacking on the comet and selecting exposures that were several minutes apart to get some gaps between the stars so I could remove them. The 6 stacks were then combined, before adding the stars and "fuzzies" back in. I've placed the comet in exactly the same spot as the last exposure of the run. Not sure if I've just invented this method, but it worked well for this image!

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