This is Comet Wirtanen 46P in Taurus on December 14/15, 2018 accompanied by a meteor, caught by chance of course. The meteor has left a yellowish “smoke” cloud. Yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades are at bottom, the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) is at top, in Perseus, while the blue Pleiades are at centre. They form a nice colour contrast with the cyan-green comet. The Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust are at left. Comet Wirtanen was two days before its closest approach to Earth and nearly at its brightest. It was visible to the unaided eye. I got a chance to capture this and other views after Chinook clouds cleared off near midnight on Dec 14/15. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800 with the Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8. The meteor is from one of those frames. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) passing Mars in the constellation of Taurus on the night of Feb 10, 2023. Mars appears to be at the tip of a dark lane of interstellar dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds. The comet is showing its whitish dust tail and blue ion tail, as well as its cyan coma from diatomic carbon emission. The star cluster at left is NGC 1746. This is a stack of 6 x 2-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with Canon R5 and with the RF70-200mm lens at f/4 and 179mm. Tracked but unguided on the AP Mach1 mount, and taken from home. A mild diffusion effect added with Radiant Photo plug-in. Faint nebulosity brought out with luminosity masked curves from Lumenzia.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in the constellation of Taurus on the night of Feb 10, 2023. The comet is the cyan-coloured glow above bright orange Mars at upper left. The framing takes in the major star clusters in Taurus: At upper right is the Pleiades star cluster, while the Hyades star cluster with reddish Aldebaran is at bottom. Other NGC catalogue star clusters are in this framing: NGC 1647 to the left of the Hyades and NGC 1746 to the left of the comet and Mars. Mars appears to be at the tip of a dark lane of interstellar dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds. This is a stack of 10 x 2-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with Canon R5 and with the RF70-200mm lens at f/4 and 89mm. Tracked but unguided on the AP Mach1 mount, and taken from home. A mild diffusion effect added with Radiant Photo plug-in. Faint nebulosity brought out with luminosity masked curves from Lumenzia.
