Categories: AstrophotosComets

Astrophoto: Comet LINEAR Meets a Spiral Galaxy

The current brightest comet in the skies, Comet C/2012 V2 LINEAR, appears to pass by the bright spiral galaxy NGC 2997 in Antlia on September 29, 2013. Credit and copyright: Damian Peach.

Just in from the pretty pictures department: Award-winning Astrophotographer Damian Peach from the UK took this gorgeous image this morning of Comet C/2012 V2 LINEAR passing by bright spiral galaxy NGC 2997. While the cosmic duo looks like they are right next to each other, Damian notes that in reality, the comet is 17 light minutes away from Earth while NGC 2997 is 38 million light years away.

The specs: 0.11m F5.6 with STL-11k. LRGB. L: 5x3mins. RGB: 1x2mins.

Check out more of Damian’s fantastic collection of images at his website or Facebook page.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/