5 Hours of Beautiful Comet Lovejoy in 30 Seconds

By Nancy Atkinson - December 29, 2011 at 8:34 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy

Colin Legg from Esperance, Australia has been documenting Comet Lovejoy's holiday gift to the southern hemisphere, and this is his latest -- and possibly last -- timelapse, as the comet has started to fade. This one covers almost 5 hours of Legg's Comet Lovejoy views as seen during the early morning hours of December 27, 2011. "I used a tracking device to track in azimuth only to maximize coverage," Legg said. "If you look closely at the head in the 2nd half you can see it moving against the stars."

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