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Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS

·172 words·1 min·
Comet C/2019 Y4

Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS has been a big disappointment. It was discovered just four months ago, on December 28, 2019. Initially it brightened much more quickly than expected, and there were hopes that it might reach naked-eye visibility in late May when it will pass closest to the sun and to the earth. However its nucleus was observed to fragment by early April, and as a result it started getting dimmer instead of brighter. You can see pictures of the fragments taken by the Hubble Space Telescope by clicking on this link.

Here are two pictures that I took 25 minutes apart on April 10 of Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS. You can easily see the comet’s motion towards the lower left.

   c2019y4 seen using Celestron RASA 8 and ZWO ASI183MC

 

   c2019y4 seen using Celestron RASA 8 and ZWO ASI183MC

 

I took the following two pictures on April 20. They were taken an hour and 20 minutes apart, and you can see that the comet has moved towards the 7 o’clock position during that time. Unfortunately, my telescope cannot begin to distinguish the fragments of the nucleus!

   c2019y4 seen using Celestron RASA 8 and ZWO ASI183MC
   c2019y4 seen using Celestron RASA 8 and ZWO ASI183MC

Since the images in this blog are relatively large and contain a lot of detail, if you are using a phone or a small tablet, you might want to consider returning sometime when you can use a computer with its larger screen.