Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail (Christian Koll)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Lynx (Lyn) · Contains: Solar system body or event

Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail, Christian Koll

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Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

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Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

This closeup shows comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) on July 13th 2020.
Outright beautiful are the delicate filaments of the ion tail, which consist of gas ionized by ultraviolet light from our Sun. The distinctive blue colour originates from carbon monoxide, a gas that in frozen form is one of the major constituents of a comet’s nucleus.
Curious is the red part of the ion tail, reportedly caused by sodium.

Acquiring and processing of this photograph proved to be quite complex, since the comet was standing very low above the horizon. Light pollution, cloud streaks and a short time window during the summer nights were the main challenges to overcome.

This is a stack of 70 exposures of 30 seconds each at ISO 1600. Taken with a Nikon D750 and a Skywatcher Esprit 100/550 telescope in rural Upper Austria. Focal length reduced to 412mm with a Ricciardi Reducer.
Tracking with Skywatcher EQ6-R, Autoguiding with MGEN-3. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight and Photoshop.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7716687
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

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Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

Comet NEOWISE: A Closeup View of the Sodium Tail

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