Comets PANSTARRS and Lemmon Still Linger for Early Morning Views

By Nancy Atkinson - May 17, 2013 at 10:34 PM UTC | Observing
CometPanstarrs051613-15x1mFSchur1600.jpg

The comet show is

still

not over! Early on May 16, 2013, astrophotographer Chris Schur from central Arizona was able to see two comets at once, Comet PANSTARRS AND Comet Lemmon. "We set up on our 14 foot tall balcony observing pad and was able to get the very low Comet Lemmon as it rose in the eastern sky," Chris told Universe Today via email. "While PANSTARRS was up high by 2:30am, we had to wait until 3:30 before we could try Lemmon."

While neither comet was visible to the naked eye, Chris reported that both were seen quite clearly in the 11x80 binoculars. "It was fun to go back and forth rapidly between the two objects to compare," he said. "While PANSTARRS is now a very low surface brightness wedge shaped object, Lemmon was just a huge ball of light, about two magnitudes brighter."

[caption id="attachment_102222" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Comet Lemmon as seen over central Arizona on May 16, 2013. Credit and copyright: Chris Schur. [/caption]

If you look carefully you can see the comets are stationary, and the stars are slightly trailed from the motion against the starry background.

"One point Id like to make is that PANSTARRS is currently exhibiting one of the most spectacular anti tails I have ever seen," Chris said. "I have imaged hundreds of comets but never one with such a long sunward spike. This comet is VERY special."

When viewed edge on from Earth, the anti tail appears as a spike projecting from the comet's coma towards the Sun It is geometrically opposite to the other tails: the ion tail and the dust tail.

Thanks to Chris for sharing his great images of these comets!

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you're giving us permission to post them). Please explain what's in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

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