Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) at upper left as the blue glow, in the constellation of Andromeda, with the Andromeda Galaxy, M31, at lower left. The star cluster NGC 752 is left of the comet, and the galaxy M33 is at the left edge. The Double Cluster in Perseus is at upper right. The constellaiton of Cassiiopeia is at right. Taken Feb 9, 2015 from City of Rocks State Park, New Mexico. This is a stack of 5 x 2m15s exposures with the 50mm lens at f/2.5 and Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800, on the Star Adventurer tracking mount. Plus two exposures taken through the Kenko Softon filter layered in to add the star glows.
Comet PanSTARRS (C/2017 T2) passing near the bright galaxy pair Messier 81 (below) and Messier 82 (above) in Ursa Major on the night of May 23/24, 2020. This was the comet that in predictions from autumn 2019 was supposed to have been the highlight of May 2020, perhaps reaching naked-eye brightness, or at least be bright enough to be good for binoculars. It was visible in 15x70 binoculars this night but quite faintly as a fuzzy spot near the brighter galaxies, so about magnitude 8 at best. Comets SWAN and ATLAS for a time usurped this comet for publicity in spring 2020 but also largely failed to perform, certainly not reaching naked eye brightness. This is a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures with the William Optics RedCat astrograph at f/4.9 (250mm focal length) and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 1600, median stacked. Guided on stars — so, yes, the comet has trailed somewhat but it is not noticeable at this image scale and the motion was in the direction of the comet length. The field here is about 8° x 5°, similar to binoculars. North is up.
