Comets 2023

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) | References

On this page, I present photos of the comets that I observed in the year 2023.

C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a long-period comet from the Oort cloud that was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) on March 2, 2022. The comet has a bright green glow around its nucleus, due to the effect of sunlight on diatomic carbon and cyanogen. The comet reached its perihelion on January 12, 2023, at a distance of 1.11 AU (166 million km), and the closest approach to Earth was on February 1, 2023, at a distance of 0.28 AU (42 million km). The comet reached magnitude 5 and was visible with the naked eye under moonless dark skies. As of February 5, the comet is within 6 degrees of Capella (about the field of view of common binoculars) and estimated to be about magnitude 6 (from Wikipedia, adapted).

Photos from February 4, 2023 (Mühlhausen/Kraichgau, eVscope 2)


C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - 1 min	C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - 2 min	C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - > 4 min*

Nearly full moon without clouds	Ditto	Ditto

*) Since the telescope tracks the star background, the comet gets longer during the observation time, because it moves differently than the stars.

Photos from February 7, 2023 (Mühlhausen/Kraichgau, eVscope 2)


C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - 48 s		C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - 340 s*		C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - 120 s

*) Since the telescope tracks the star background, the comet gets longer during the observation time, because it moves differently than the stars.

References

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) (Wikipedia, EN): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2022_E3_(ZTF)
C/2022 E3 (ZTF) (Wikipedia, DE): de.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2022_E3_(ZTF)
Unistellar eVscope 2 - Information