Comets
Lemmon and PanSTARRS Peaking
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
Two
impressive comets will both reach their peak brightness during the next two
weeks. Taking advantage of a rare imaging opportunity, both of these comets
were captured in the sky together last week over the Atacama desert in South
America.
Comet
C/2012 F6 (Lemmon), visible on the upper left of the above image, is sporting a
long tail dominated by glowing green ions. Comet C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), visible
near the horizon on the lower right, is showing a bright tail dominated by dust
reflecting sunlight.
The
tails of both comets point approximately toward the recently set Sun. Comet
Lemmon will be just barely visible to the unaided eye before sunset in southern
skies for the next week, and then best viewed with binoculars as it fades and
moves slowly north.
Comet
PanSTARRS, however, will remain visible in southern skies for only a few more
days, after which it will remain bright enough to be locatable with the unaided eye as it moves into
northern skies.
To
find the giant melting snowball PanSTARRS, sky enthusiasts should look toward
the western horizon just after sunset. Deep sky observers are also monitoring
the brightening of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), which may become one of the
brightest objects in the entire night sky toward the end of 2013.
Image Credit
& Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (ESO)
