More Comet Wirtanen

Clouds were quickly encroaching the view when I was able to get this capture of the 8.8 magnitude Comet 46P/Wirtanen (arrow) at 9:52 pm CST, Saturday, December 15, 2018. Minutes later and then throughout most of the night the sky was cloudy. Above the comet is the Pleiades star cluster, and at lower left is the 0.84 magnitude star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. This image, captured from my back deck in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a 5 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 8000 and 52mm focal length.

One day later and Comet Wirtanen was at its closest approach to Earth. The comet (arrow) is 53 degrees above the horizon in the southeast sky. This image was captured from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 7:47 pm CST, Sunday, December 16, 2018. The image is a stack of four frames--3 sky and one ground--with each sky image a five second exposure at f/3.5, ISO 2500 and 18mm focal length. The constellation Orion can be seen just above the horizon. Air temperature was 31 degrees F.

Zoomed in version of the comet (arrow) at 7:58 pm. Four image stack. Each frame is a five second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 6400, 55mm focal length. The Pleiades star cluster is prominently seen at upper right. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.