What a beauty! This is comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) passing through the field of view of the LASCO C3 coronagraph.
It wasn't for certain whether it would survive it's closest approach to the sun on January 13th, but it did and delivered us a spectacular show!
#comet #C2024G3 🔭
It wasn't for certain whether it would survive it's closest approach to the sun on January 13th, but it did and delivered us a spectacular show!
#comet #C2024G3 🔭
Comments
However, the other way around, thr comet tail is most definitely affected and even created by the solar wind.
I thought it would be a quick job, since I already had the python code in place from C/2023 A3, but fixing the CCD blooming was a very different challenge this time around. Lots of scipy, openCV, and many code revisions to fix edge cases were involved 😅
This paper analyzed them for comet McNaught:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103518301192
Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Pierre, Eddie Redmayne?
No it's....comet C/2024 G3
The raw data can be accessed here: https://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/pub/lasco/lastimage/level_05/
Maybe we can discuss your processing at lunch tomorrow 😇👍 I am curious.
I'm always happy to talk about image processing, but be careful what you wish for 😅
And it almost didn't make it past the two year mark when contact to it was lost in 1998.
The story of how it was recovered is really worth a read:
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/29/esa_soho_space_extenders/
WOW! 🤫