Comet Nishimura on early morning of Sep 7, 2023

Click on image to enlarge

Date & Time: Sep 6 2023, from 27:38 to 27:58 JST(+0900)
Composed 14 shots with 1.5 minutes exposed
Optical: TAKAHASHI 16cm(6.3") epsilon (f=530mm, F3.3)
with IDAS LPS-D1 Light-pollution suppression filter
Auto-guided with TAKAHASHI EM-200 Equatorial
CMOS Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro (Cooled temp.: -9°C)
Location: Kujihama, Hitachi city, Ibaraki pref.

Camera Settings: Recording format...16bit FITS, converted to 16bit TIFF(6248×4176)
Device Size...23.5×15.7mm, Gain...100


I captured comet 2023P1 Nishimura, which is 10 days prior to its perihelion passage, in the low sky right along the ENE horizon where dawn had begun. On this day, the comet was positioned just 20 minutes northwest of εLeo, located at the tip of the "Leo's Sickle". The εLeo, seen in the lower left corner of the image, is a third-magnitude star, and the comet appeared to be equally bright or slightly brighter. It displayed more active activity than the forecasted brightness of 5th magnitude on this day. And the comet has a magnificent ion tail rippling and extending beyond three degrees in length towards northwest. Due to the comet rapidly approaching the Sun after this day apparently, observing it from the Earth will become extremely challenging.
View angle: 2.44×1.63°


Nishimura on early morning of Sep 10, 2023
Nishimura on early morning of Sep 2, 2023

Copyright(c) 2023 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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