Photographer:
Pepe Chambó
Location of Photo:
Valencia, Spain
Date/Time of photo:
2022 January 8, 02:31 UT
Equipment:
GSO 8" N f/3.6, Atik 383L+
Description:
Comet C/2019 L3 (ATLAS) imaged on January 8, 2021, just at its perihelion and also at its closest approach to Earth. With a brightness close to magnitude 8.5, it shows a fairly concentrated white coma with about 10.5' in angular size and a dust tail of at least 14' in length. It is a comet with a huge nucleus of tens of kilometers but with a quite distant perihelion almost at the distance of Jupiter, which has not allowed it to be seen brighter.