SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
bellavia
Location of Photo:
Southold, NY
Date/Time of photo:
April 10, 2023, 8:45PM
Equipment:
Borg 90FL, ZWO ASI 294MM, Edmund Optics 589 nm / 10nm bandpass filter
Description:
A 24 million km long plume of gas is ejected from Mercury's thin atmosphere due to the sun, very much like a comet. This is only visible using a narrowband filter that captures the bright yellow sodium light at 589nm. A tail was predicted in the 1980s, and first discovered in 2001. Many tail details were revealed in Multiple observations by NASA's robotic MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury between 2011 and 2015 revealed more details of this tail.
