Comet PANSTARRS Stars in a New Timelapse Movie

By Nancy Atkinson - March 12, 2013 08:42 PM UTC | Observing

NASA scientist Fred Espenak captured this wonderful timelapse video of Comet PANSTARRS as it set over the Dos Cabezas Mountains in Arizona. The photos were taken from San Simon, AZ using a Nikon D90 and Nikkor 18-200 VR zoom lens at 200mm. All exposures were 2 seconds at F/5.6 (ISO 800).

I'm now seriously jealous, as my location has been socked in with clouds all week so far. If you're in the same boat, enjoy some more images of Comet PANSTARRS from Universe Today readers:

Comet PanSTARRS - The Movie from Fred Espenak on Vimeo.

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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