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Patrick Prokop
Savannah, GA, USA
01/24/2023
05:45 am

Equipment Details:

Orion EON 130mm triplet refractor telescope using a 0.8x field reducer

Post-processing Details:

Stacked in Deep SkyStacker, processed in PixInsight and post-processed in Photoshop

Image Details:

I was able to capture the comet Tuesday morning (Jan 24) shortly before 6 AM. This is a 3-minute exposure.
The comet is currently about 36 million miles (59 Million km) away with a magnitude of around +6, which is just above the value needed to see with the naked eye (which is around +5 ... Lower values are brighter). It could brighten a bit more by Feb 1 when it will be closest to the earth at a distance of 35.48 million miles (57.147 km) but most likely you will continue to need a telescope or binoculars to see it. The green color is from the out-gassing of several carbon compounds with cyanide (CN) being the most likely compound generating the green color.
Telescope used: Orion EON 130mm triplet refractor

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