Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
in the evening sky
2/13/24

 
 This
            10.5 magnitude comet is incomming and currently located on the
            Virgo/Libra border. It has a very bright stellar nucleus and
            a very short stubby ray type tail. It appeared very stellar on
            the 5 minute subframes with the RASA up at Happy Jack, and in
            fact the stellar nucleus saturated the sensor! Rather colorless
            at this point, we are on the look out for when some gas emission
            will cause a blue/green coloration in the coma. Late fall is
            expected to reach 0 magnitude.

            
Select an image size for a larger view:

1400 x 1200
            


Lens:  8 f/2 RASA Schmidt
Platform:  Ioptron GEM45
Exposure:  30 mins
Location:  Happy Jack, Arizona
Elevation:  7000 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  6/10, Transparency 9/10
Outside Temperature:  35F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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