Beautiful Comet ISON Timelapse and Recent Images

By Nancy Atkinson - October 24, 2013 05:02 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy

This beautiful new view of Comet ISON comes from a collaborative effort between astrophotographers Cliff Spohn in Ohio and Terry Hancock in Michigan, taken on October 21, 2013. "The first time in almost two weeks that we have had a break in the clouds and rain we could not miss this rare opportunity to capture ISON using Cliff's equipment," said Terry via email. "Credit goes to Cliff for capturing the object while I did the calibration, stacking in CCDStack post processing in CS5 and video editing."

You can see a timelapse video below, covering 93 minutes of imaging, again on October 21. It's obvious ISON is still intact and it continues to bright, as it is currently about magnitude 9.

More recent images:

Update:

This new one is just in from astrophotographer

Damian Peach,

and its a beauty! Taken on October 24.

[caption id="attachment_105751" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Comet C/2012 S1 ISON captured passing fairly close to the bright barred spiral galaxy M95 in Leo on October 24, 2013. Credit and copyright: Damian Peach. [/caption]

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Comet ISON C/2012 S1, Mars, & Regulus on 10-18-2013

Warrenton, Virginia 6:27am EST

Canon Rebel Xsi & 170mm lens F6.3, ISO 400,

6 minutes 6 secs. Credit and Copyright: John Chumack. [/caption]

From John Chumack: "I just had to try just a telephoto on Comet ISON while it was near Mars," John said via email. This view shows Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) near Mars and Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo. This image was taken on October 18, 2013 from Warrenton, Virginia at 6:27am EST looking over Washington D.C.

[caption id="attachment_105735" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Triple conjunction of Comet ISON, Mars, Regulus on October 14, 2013, as seen from Payson, Arizona, USA. Credit and copyright: Chris Schur. [/caption]

This nice image comes from Chris Schur from Arizona, taken on October 14, and is also of the conjunction. "As you may recall, on this date of 10/14 the three objects were in a perfect line going from south to north in Leo," Chris said via email. "What a spectacular sight in the 11 x 80 binoculars! While the comet was quite faint, a short 1/4 degree of tail could be seen, and the gorgeous blue and orange colors of the planets."

Chris used a Canon Xti, ASA800 with 10 minutes total integration time, with a 80mm f/4.8 Ziess APO refractor on a Televue GEM. Taken from Payson, Arizona at 5,100 feet elevation.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com