New Year's Comet
NEW YEARS COMET: After a 13.6 year absence, Comet 8P/Tuttle is once again traveling through the inner solar system and on Jan. 1st and 2nd it makes its closest approach to Earth--only 24 million miles away. The emerald-colored comet will brighten to a predicted magnitude of 5.8, visible to the unaided eye from dark-sky sites and a fine target for backyard telescopes: sky map.
"This 35 minute animation shows the comet's rapid motion," says photographer Christoph Otawa of
"I used a Canon 400D @ ISO 800 to photograph the comet, and combined a series of 3 minute 30 second exposures to create the movie," he explains.
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