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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over Bryce Canyon (Sept 27, 2024)
Comet C2023 A3 over Bryce Canyon (Sept 27, 2024).jpg
This is Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in the dawn twilight over Bryce Canyon, Utah, on the morning of September 27, 2024.
This was the day the comet was at perihelion, its closest point to the Sun in its orbit, but not closest to the Sun in our sky. It was making a brief appearance low in the dawn sky this week before passing between Earth and the Sun, to be lost in the daytime sky too close to the Sun in early October 2024. The comet was discovered at the Purple Mountain Observatory (aka Tsuchinshan) in China in January 2023, and independently in February 2023 by the automated ATLAS Observatory in South Africa.
The location was Fairyland Point in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, looking almost due east. The time was approximately 6:20 am MDT. The comet had risen at about 6 am.
The comet was not visible to the naked eye, and was not obvious in 10x50 binoculars. It was obvious on the camera's live viewscreen.
Technical:
This is a blend of a single long 20-second exposure, untracked, for the ground, with a stack of 4 x 2.5-second short exposures, tracked, for the sky. All at f/2 with the Canon RF135mm lens and Canon R5 at ISO 400. The tracker was the MSM Nomad. The long ground exposure brings out some of the foreground details lit by the twilight and light from the waning crescent Moon off frame higher in the sky, so the ground is not just a silhouette. The stacking of the sky images smooths noise but also the blurring from the seeing effects from the comet's low altitude. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.
This was the day the comet was at perihelion, its closest point to the Sun in its orbit, but not closest to the Sun in our sky. It was making a brief appearance low in the dawn sky this week before passing between Earth and the Sun, to be lost in the daytime sky too close to the Sun in early October 2024. The comet was discovered at the Purple Mountain Observatory (aka Tsuchinshan) in China in January 2023, and independently in February 2023 by the automated ATLAS Observatory in South Africa.
The location was Fairyland Point in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, looking almost due east. The time was approximately 6:20 am MDT. The comet had risen at about 6 am.
The comet was not visible to the naked eye, and was not obvious in 10x50 binoculars. It was obvious on the camera's live viewscreen.
Technical:
This is a blend of a single long 20-second exposure, untracked, for the ground, with a stack of 4 x 2.5-second short exposures, tracked, for the sky. All at f/2 with the Canon RF135mm lens and Canon R5 at ISO 400. The tracker was the MSM Nomad. The long ground exposure brings out some of the foreground details lit by the twilight and light from the waning crescent Moon off frame higher in the sky, so the ground is not just a silhouette. The stacking of the sky images smooths noise but also the blurring from the seeing effects from the comet's low altitude. Stacked, masked and blended in Photoshop.
- Copyright
- © Alan Dyer/AmazingSky.com
- Image Size
- 8150x5410 / 4.3MB
- www.amazingsky.com
