Last fall, the spectacular Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan ATLAS looped around the sun and put on a show in the early evening sky.  I had a great time having a comet tailgate party with friends, seeking it naked eye, and capturing it with my camera and an 85 mm lens.  

As the days passed and the comet travelled away from the sun, it grew dimmer and its tail grew shorter, and I switched over to using my telescope.  In the left-most of the lower images, you can see some interesting structure in the comet’s tail.  

Processing comets is a challenge because the comet moves relative to the stars and so has to be aligned and processed separately.  They take longer to process than other Deep Space Objects, and I only just finished processing all my images.  I thought it would be fun to collect them all together and make the picture above.

Imaging this visitor from the outer solar system was a great treat.  I’m looking forward to the next one.