Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner: an image (6 Sept. 2018)

While it approaches its perihelion, we imaged comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner crossings the Northern sky, close to the visibility by naked eye. We will track it for the the upcoming weeks, meantime we are pleased to share this image with you.

Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner: 6 Sept. 2018

Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner: 6 Sept. 2018

The image above comes from the average of 11, 180-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project. The robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, so stars left trails on the background. The image scale is 1.2″/pixel.

Once averaged, images were carefully processed to assure a good visibility of both the bright false nucleus and the faint coma; a faint feature resembling a ion tail is also visible.

We plan to observe this comet regularly.

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