A Arizona-based Astrotographer captured Comet Leonard streaking across space in a flash of orange, green, and blue.
Andrew McCarthy spent several hours waiting to capture the perfect shot. It shows the ‘incredible architecture and colour’ surrounding the nucleus of the comet and the wispy tail with a green tint.
Comet Leonard was found by Gregory J Leonard (Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory, Arizona) and cataloged under C/2021 AI.
At nearly 160,000 miles per an hour, the comet was fast approaching Earth since it’s discovery.
Comet Leonard was closest to Earth in December 12th, when it was 21.56 million miles (34.9 millions km) away.
On January 3, it was at 57.2 Million Miles (92 Mio km) from the star.
Earthlings won’t be able to see it again, as the comet is now hurling from our Solar System.
Comet Leonard, seen from Arizona after Andrew McCarthy (astronaut) waited until the right moment, when it was brightest.
Comet Leonard’s first sighting was almost exactly one year ago, on January 3, 2021 by Gregory J Leonard. While it was faint at first, its brightness has increased as it gets closer to the Sun.
Animation of Comet Leonard’s orbit around Sun in 2021 (the yellow central dot), and passing-by Earth (dark dot).
McCarthy took the photo in December and posted it to his Instagram account, cosmic_background.
McCarthy explained that even though I was quite low in the southwest sky, McCarthy managed to capture 12 minutes of close-up photos, which gave him a wonderful view at the structure and color around the nucleus.
“I could not see it clearly with my naked eyes, but I was able to see it quite clearly through binoculars.”
“You can capture it with just your cell phone, if you know how to search!
Comet Leonard’s greenish tail is due to its greenish icy rock interior. It heats up as it nears the sun and emits blue dust first, followed by yellow, white, and then green.
It will turn this teal color if it does. This indicates that the comet has reached its maximum temperature, is rich in cyanide, and is most likely to burst.
McCarthy braved heavy rainstorms to get the shot. This affected his ability to use his telescope.
He said, “It was difficult to align the polar axis because I had to mount my telescope during daylight.”
The sun and Venus were visible at the same time during the day.
Andrew combined 25 shots taken in less than 12 minutes to highlight the finer details of the comet’s tail.
“Once the telescope was properly aligned I centered it over the area where I expected the comet to be and started shooting shortly after the sun had set.
Ordinarily you wait until the sun has set before starting to shoot. The sun’s light bounces off of the atmosphere, making it difficult for deep-space objects to be seen.
The comet’s brightness was sufficient to make it visible in the “blue hour”, before everything was dark. After it had appeared, I started taking photos.
Andrew used 25 shots from over twelve minutes to make the final image.
This meticulous process enabled the photographer to take sharper photos of the stars as well as the comet.
Gregory J Leonard, an astronomer, first saw Comet Leonard on January 3, 2021. The Comet Leonard was first seen on January 3, 2021 by Gregory J. Leonard. It became more bright as it traveled closer to the sun.
Comets – also called ‘cosmic snowballs’ or ‘icy dirtballs’ – are conglomerations of frozen gas, dust and ice left over from the formation of the solar system.
Comets travel around the Sun using an orbit that is highly elliptical. This means they don’t always circle perfectly.
They can spend hundreds and thousands of years out in the depths of the Solar System before they return for their ‘perihelion’ – their closest approach to the Sun.
Because its interior of icy rocks heats up as it nears the sun, the comet’s green tail is due to this. First, the comet emits a blue dust and then, yellow, white, and finally, green
Comet Leonard, however, has a hyperbolic or orbit. It will pass the Sun and be ejected into the Solar System.
McCarthy stated that comets were like snowflakes and no two are the same.
They change as well because of the solar wind that blasts particles from the icy rocks into deep space. The result is the gorgeous tails they’re known for.
“When such events occur, astronomers around the globe abandon all other projects to focus solely on these beautiful beauties while they sail around and circle the sun.
“This comet is so fast and far away that it can be launched out of our solar system at a velocity and orbit it cannot be seen again.”
C/2021, A1 (Leonard), became the first to be discovered as a comet in 2021. This comet has a hyperbolic path and was discovered by G. J. Leonard last January.
Comet Leonard may already be splitting up, or it will begin to split up soon, according to Quanzhi Ye, an astronomer at the University of Maryland.
Ye observed Comet Leonard using the Lowell Discovery Telescope, a 4.3-m telescope located in Arizona.
He said that the comet was already beginning to fade as it neared Earth. This is unusual because comets become brighter in advance of close approaches.
This could indicate that the organism is disintegrating less than a full year after its first discovery.