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Photographer:

Mike Olason

Location of Photo:

Tucson, Arizona

Date/Time of photo:

13 January 2021, 0216UT

Equipment:

11" SCT and STF-8300M CCD Camera

Description:

On May 11, 2016 images collected by the STEREO-A spacecraft on the far side of the Sun from Earth showed a magnitude 8 comet which became known as Comet P/2016 J3 (STEREO). It has been recovered as Comet P/2021 A3 (STEREO) as it makes its close approach to the Sun in its 4.67 year orbit on January 25 when it may brighten to magnitude 11. It will soon be given a permanent Periodic Comet number by the MPC. These images show the comet at magnitude 14.2 with a broad fan tail to the SW of the coma as it was 64 million miles from Earth. For those who want to find this comet, don't use JPL or MPC ephemeris, it has not been updated yet. Michael Jaeger and Syuichi Nakano have produced ephemeris for not only this comet but also for the new fragments of Comet 141P Michael Jaeger has found. Uwe Pilz of the German Comet Group has been kind enough to publish these ephemeris for these comets on the German Comet Message Forum. Syuichi Nakano also produces Nakano Notes where he generates ephemeris for comets that usually comes out a long time before the MPC updates their ephemeris for special comets like the 2 above. Gideon van Buitenen has a site at astro.vanbuitenen.nl where he has a lot of information on comets and he generates up to date comet ephemeris for different software sky programs like Guide. Without these gentlemen and the German Comet Group I would not be imaging comet STEREO and the 141P fragments. I apologize if I spelled their names wrong or got some of this wrong, but they are taking the lead in helping amateur astronomers get up to date information on comets as they come into view in the skies over our heads.

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