View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Samil Cabrera in the Everglades, Florida, captured this image of the green comet and Mars on February 10, 2023. Samil wrote: “A close encounter of the green comet and the red planet dancing in the dusty regions of the constellation Taurus from last night, February 10.” Thank you, Samil!
The green comet and red Mars
Many thanks to all of you who submitted your wonderful photos of the green comet, C/2022 E3 (ZTF). The comet is now fleeing away from our sun, back to the depths of the outer solar system. On its way, it passed close to red Mars on our sky’s dome on February 10 and 11. Here are some of favorite shots from members of the EarthSky community. Have a great photo of your own? Share it at EarthSky Community Photos.
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Stephen James O’Meara captured this image from Maun, Botswana. Stephen wrote: “Just wanted readers to know that the Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) is now a binocular spectacle in Southern Hemisphere skies. We have been sharing in the excitement for about a week. This image shows the comet departing the vicinity of Mars … Note the comet’s gently curved and diaphanous dust tail.” Thank you, Stephen!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Soumyadeep Mukherjee in West Bengal, India, captured this image on February 11, 2023. Soumyadeep wrote: “While I was imaging the conjunction between Mars and Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF, a few fireflies were hovering around the camp. And luckily, some of them appeared in this single image which I realized later while reviewing the images on a laptop.” Thank you, Soumyadeep!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | James Slezak in Hampton Bays, New York, captured this wide-field image containing Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on February 12, 2023. He wrote: “In the middle of this image is the reddish object, Mars. Just below it is the comet. The dust tail is visible and slight brightening of the nucleus is just visible. In the upper right corner is the open cluster M45, more commonly known as the Pleides. […]” Thank you, James!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Hassan Abdollahabadi in Baghrood, Neyshabure, Iran, captured this telescopic image of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on February 11, 2023. He wrote: “Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will appear beside the Red Planet from February 10 through February 13, after which it will begin approaching the constellations Orion and Eridanus. This image shows the passage of this comet by the planet Mars on the evening of Saturday, February 11.” Thank you, Hassan!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Thea Schenk in Kampen, The Netherlands captured this image on February 11, 2023, and wrote: “Comet C/2022 E3 passes Mars. Photo taken from my back garden.” Thank you, Thea!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Giancarlo Bianchi captured this image of the green comet and Mars on February 10, 2023. Giancarlo wrote: “I shot this image close to my house in a nearby park in Feilding, New Zealand. Went out for a couple of hours in cloudy weather, hopeful that I would get a lucky break in the clouds. The moon was also rising, and I had a 45-minute window to get the camera settings correct and find a composition!” Thank you, Giancarlo!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Greig Huggins in Dugway, Utah, captured this image of the green comet and Mars on February 9, 2023. Greig wrote: “Focused on Mars, hoping to get the comet. Difficult to see and be sure if the comet was in frame.” Thank you, Greig!
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Amr Abdulwahab in Egypt captured this panoramic image containing Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on February 2, 2023. Thank you, Amr!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Soumyadeep Mukherjee from India, using a remote telescope in Spain, captured this telescopic image of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on January 31, 2023. He wrote: “The beloved comet shines with all her glory. The ion tail follows her and the dust tail does the crowning.” Thank you, Soumyadeep!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Catherine Ryan Hyde in Cambria, California, captured this telescopic image of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on January 31, 2023, and wrote: “I woke up at 2:30 a.m. on January 31st to try my hand at comet tracking … this is the best single 120-second image.”. Thank you, Catherine!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Matthew Chin took this image of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on January 31, 2023, in Hong Kong, China. He wrote: “C/2022 E3 (ZTF), and the constellation Draco the Dragon, in Yuen Long, Hong Kong” Thank you, Matthew!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Basudeb Chakrabarti submitted this image of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on January 29, 2023, from West Bengal, India. Basudeb wrote: “For the last couple of months, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has been the darling of astronomers and astrophotographers. Nicknamed as ‘Neanderthal Comet,’ it is currently the queen of the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere, wonderfully showing off its ion tail, dust tail and the anti tail (optical phenomenon). We, Astronomads Bangla, wanted to grab this opportunity, fighting with Kolkata’s light pollution and air pollution and present a collage of the comet taken at different focal lengths.” Thank you, Basudeb Chakrabarti, Samit Saha and Soumyadeep Mukherjee!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Asher Albrecht in Canton, Ohio, captured this great image on January 28, 2023, and wrote “I tried to photograph Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) earlier in the month but couldn’t get an image I was happy with. Unexpectedly, my skies were clear the last weekend in January and I quickly captured this one.” Thank you, Asher!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Mohammed Abdallah captured this image from Valley of Whales in Egypt, on January 28, 2023, and wrote “This shot was taken on the night of the 26th of January. I traveled 5 hours in the middle of the desert to hunt for the visiting comet. It was taken from the Valley of Whales in Egypt, Fayoum Desert. Our visitor has been here 50 thousand years ago, and now it’s back.” Thank you, Mohammed!
More photos and video of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF)
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Steven Bellavia in Mattituck, New York, captured this great image on January 28, 2023, and wrote “Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on its way out of the solar system.” Steven also contributed the video below. Thank you, Steven!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Abhijit Patil in Pinnacles National Park, Soledad, California, captured this wonderful image on January 27, 2023. Abhijit wrote: “One of the biggest talks about this comet is, it has a third tail: an anti-tail. Generally, a comet consists of only 2 tails, an ion tail and dust tail. A dust tail reflects sunlight and the ion tail is the glowy tail because of the ionized gases. But this one shows a third tail going toward the sun. Although it is not actually a tail but an optical illusion! The leftover dust behind the comet gets illuminated again as the Earth crosses the plane of the comet’s orbit around the sun.” Thank you, Abhijit!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Eliot Herman in Tucson, Arizona, captured these images of the comet over several days and wrote “This image shows six days of apparent change in Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) (January 24-29) … Both the comet and Earth move quickly in their orbits resulting in observable changes within a day’s time.” Thank you, Eliot!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Jasna Maras of Vrlika, Croatia, captured this image of the comet on January 25, 2023. And Uros Todorovic Miksaj – also of Vrlika – processed it and wrote: “Maybe there will be more opportunities in February, but for now we have at least one memory of this once-in-a-lifetime visitor.” Thank you, Jasna and Uros!
And, from earlier in January 2023 …
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Osama Fathi in the White Desert, Egypt, captured this wonderful comet image on January 21, 2023, and wrote “Three tails of the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with the Chicken and Mushroom rocks, White Desert, Egypt.” Thank you, Osama!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Luke Oxlade in the UK took this photo of Comet 2022 E3 on January 18, 2023. Luke wrote: “The green glowing object is Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) … Its long trail can be seen spanning across to the right of the image. Located just below Ursa Major in the northeastern skies.” Thank you, Luke!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Jelieta Walinski in Hickiwan, Arizona, captured this telescopic image of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) on January 18, 2023. Jelieta wrote: “On January 17, I started at about 4 p.m. to set up my telescope and take photos of the night sky … I waited until it was about 40 degrees in the sky and I started to photograph […] I was already shivering when I captured it because of being out for a long time though I bundled up at 8 layers I was still so cold … I said to myself never mind with the cold, there is a 50,000-year visitor here and I need to document its beauty.” Thank you, Jelieta!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Karthik Easvur in New Delhi, India, took this image of Comet 2022 E3 on January 17, 2023. Karthik wrote: “Today, early morning, I tried photographing the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) from my terrace. I was able to photograph it. Hope it becomes brighter in the coming days so that it becomes visible to our unaided eyes.” Thank you, Karthik!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Karl Diefenderfer in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, took this image of Comet 2022 E3 on January 16, 2023. Karl wrote: “Was lucky enough to image comet C/2022 E3 on Monday morning.” Thank you, Karl!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Steven Bellavia of Mattituck, New York, captured this image on January 8, 2023, of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) under full moon skies. See the greenish tinge? Thank you, Steve!
Photos of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) from 2022
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Soumyadeep Mukherjee at IC Astronomy Observatory, Spain, took this image of Comet 2022 E3 on December 29, 2022. Soumyadeep wrote: “The image captures the movement of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) over 3 days (December 27-29, 2022) in the night sky. The data were acquired remotely via Telescope Live.” Thank you, Soumyadeep!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Eliot Herman in Mayhill, New Mexico, took this image on December 20, 2022. Eliot wrote: “Comet 2022 E3 prospects for the new year look outstanding. It is already showing nicely and will get brighter and appear earlier in the predawn in the days to come. Now there is only a thin window before dawn but it is getting better each day.” Thank you, Eliot!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | David Chapman in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, took this image on September 14, 2022. David wrote: “Comet C/2022 E3. This comet is currently in Corona Borealis and will get brighter into the new year. I enjoy following comets and asteroids using the free public robotic telescope at Saint Mary’s University. The photos are exposed under the user’s direction, automatically processed and made available for download.” Thank you, David!
Bottom line: Enjoy these photos of Comet 2022 E3 (ZTF) as it departs the inner solar system. It was closest to Earth on February 1 and 2, 2023. Have a great photo of your own? Share it at EarthSky Community Photos.
Meet Marcy Curran, our voice of the night sky on EarthSky YouTube. Check out her popular short videos in the Sky category on our YouTube channel. When she's not making videos, Marcy is an EarthSky editor, helping to keep our night sky guide up-to-date and just generally helping to keep the wheels turning around here. Marcy has enjoyed stargazing since she was a child, going on family camping trips under the dark skies of Wyoming. She bought her first telescope in time to see Halley’s Comet when it visited the inner solar system in 1986. She co-founded her local astronomy club and remains an active board member. Marcy taught astronomy at her local community college for over 20 years. She and her husband live in Wyoming, in a rural location, with an all-sky camera and super-good horizon views! And, their observatory will soon be ready to photograph the night sky.
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