C/2017 K2 (Panstarrs - Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, US ) it will make its closest approach to Earth on Thursday July 14. I read it’s one of the biggest comets we've seen in quite some time. It's set to zoom just 270 million kilometers(168 million miles) past Earth on July 14 as it continues its path through the inner Solar System.

There is some uncertainty around how large the comet's nucleus is but current estimates range from 18 kilometers (11 miles) to 160 kilometers (100 miles). Either way, that's a large comet – but if it's on the larger end of the estimates, it's one of the largest known comets yet, alongside e.g. Hale-Bopp. The Hubble Space Telescope observed that K2 is around 18 kilometers in size, (which, to put it into perspective, is twice the size of Mount Everest), with the tail being millions of miles long. K2 was originally spotted back in 2017 when it was in between Uranus and Saturn (around 1.5 billion miles away from the Sun). Due to its large orbit, this is the only chance we will have to see it, as it won't pass by Earth again for a few million years.

Its brightness will likely only reach magnitude 8 or 7, so it will probably be too dim to see with the unaided eye.

I’m going to try to image it again in a few days on the 14^th July and/or 15^th July when it will be quite close to M10 a Globular cluster (fingers crossed)

Processing;

This image is made from two files i.e. DSS stacking for the comet and stacking for stars then PixInsight then layering them in Photoshop & Topaz DeNoise.

I still have a lot to learn about doing this. It’s tricky but eventually, if I do enough Comet images I’ll get there, I hope :)

Clear skies all.

Martina