Hi All,
Comet C/2020 J1 (SONEAR) has brightened as expected as it makes it's close approach to Earth on May 16 when it may reach magnitude 13. Unfortunately for most it is still at a declination of -32 degrees.
In these images the comet is magnitude 13.2 with a coma/tail of 30" more to the left (PA 90 degrees) of the nucleus as the comet is 223 million miles (359 million km) from the Earth in these images taken on 05/06/2021. The Earth is almost lined up between the Sun and comet, thus the tail is pointing away from the Earth mostly behind the comet as seen from the Earth I assume. I am most certainly not an expert on tails but looking at the geometry of the Sun, Earth and comet that appears to be what the images are showing. Anyone who would like to provide more thoughts on what the images show in relation to the coma/tail please do so.
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2020J1_20210506_0806_molason.jpg [ 170.14 KiB | 1469 mal betrachtet ] |