We caught a comet!

🌠 We caught a comet! 🌠 Well, not literally, but in a photo 😉

The photos were taken by Dawid Moździerski, the current telescope operator at OCM, just before sunrise on September 27 and 28, when the comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) was the closest to the Sun, at a distance of 0.39 AU (58 million km), and visible with the naked eye!

The comet’s orbital period – if it’s an inbound object, which is not certain – is millions of years, so this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see C/2023 A3, especially as will have its closest approach to Earth (i.e. perigee) on 12 October, 2024, at a distance of 0.47 AU.

Did you catch this comet too? Will you?