This wide view on May 20th again shows 2 naked eye comets, LINEAR at far left, and NEAT at far right. Both are cyan in colour and have faint tails, each pointing away from the Sun.
Twilight is visible along the horizon, whilst the lights of Tamworth city glow in the lower right. The Milky way and the Zodiacal light, which has Venus, Mars and Saturn embedded in its glow, form a large V in between the 2 comets. The brightest star, Sirius, is seen at top left of centre. The change in position of both comets, but especially C/LINEAR which is currently much closer to Earth, is quite obvious. Reddish-brown bands on the photo are possibly airglow in the upper atmosphere.
This photo is a single 215sec exposure taken at the end of astronomical twilight, a bit later than the image of the 19th, below, with a Nikon D70 camera and 16mm lens @ f/2.8 from Loomberah, NSW Australia.
Image Copyright © 2004 Gordon Garradd
This wide view in the evening twilight of May 19th shows 2 naked eye comets, LINEAR at far left, and NEAT at far right. Both are cyan in colour and have faint tails, each pointing away from the Sun.
Strong twilight is visible along the horizon, whilst the lights of Tamworth city glow in the lower right. The Milky way and the Zodiacal light, which has Venus, Mars and Saturn embedded in its glow, form a large V in between the 2 comets. The brightest star, Sirius, is seen at top left of centre.
This photo is the sum of 7 30sec exposures taken in twilight with a Nikon D70 camera and 16mm lens @ f/2.8 from Loomberah, NSW Australia.
Image Copyright © 2004 Gordon Garradd