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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Cometary Interloper

Cometary Interloper
Cometary Interloper This widefield image reveals the cometary interloper, Lovejoy piercing the frame containing the Andromeda galaxy in lower left, Heart & Soul Nebulae and Casseopeia constellation set against the dramatic background of our own Milky Way Galaxy star field. Captured and processed by Max Corneau

Image captured from my observatory at the Texas Astronomical Society of Dallas dark sky site in Atoka, OK. Image captured with a Canon 60Da/ Canon L-series 24-105 mm f/4 lens at ISO800. Total exposure: 120-min using 12x10minute subexposures.

I worked very hard to obtain every minute of exposure as the field set into the treeline. This was a very challenging astroimaging feat as I had to balance the competing demands of obtaining a field wide enough to contain an area from the Andromeda galaxy to the Double Cluster with a setting sky (note the few trees in the western (lower left) sky).