                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2023 October 20

                            Galaxies and a Comet
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Dan Bartlett

   Explanation: Galaxies abound in this sharp telescopic image recorded on
   October 12 in dark skies over June Lake, California. The celestial
   scene spans nearly 2 degrees within the boundaries of the well-trained
   northern constellation Canes Venatici. Prominent at the upper left 23.5
   million light-years distant is big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 4258,
   known to some as Messier 106. Eye-catching edge-on spiral NGC 4217 is
   above and right of center about 60 million light-years away. Just
   passing through the pretty field of view is comet C/2023 H2 Lemmon,
   discovered last April in image data from the Mount Lemmon Survey. Here
   the comet sports more of a lime green coma though, along with a faint,
   narrow ion tail stretching toward the top of the frame. This visitor to
   the inner Solar System is presently less than 7 light-minutes away and
   still difficult to spot with binoculars, but it's growing brighter.
   Comet C/2023 H2 Lemmon will reach perihelion, its closest point to the
   Sun, on October 29 and perigee, its closest to our fair planet, on
   November 10 as it transitions from morning to evening northern skies.

                    Tomorrow's picture: observe the Moon
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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