SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Mike Olason
Location of Photo:
Mountain, North Dakota
Date/Time of photo:
2025 October 18, 8pm
Equipment:
SeeStar S50
Description:
Pictures of Comets C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) and C/2025 R2 (SWAN) taken on the evening of October 18 at about 8pm with the same SeeStar S50 automated telescope/mount/camera system, both pictures were a stack of 3 images each 10 seconds long. Everything about both pictures is as equal as possible so that one can compare equally how both comets look next to each other as seen from the surface of the Earth. As one can see, Comet Lemmon is much brighter than Comet SWAN, about 3 times brighter with Comet Lemmon at magnitude 5.4 and Comet SWAN magnitude 6.6. Both comets make their close approach to Earth in the next several days, Lemmon 55 million miles, SWAN 24 million miles away. SWAN will now fade as it moves away from the Sun, but Lemmon may brighten 3x as it nears the Sun in the next few weeks.
