Green (But Lean) Comet

Skies in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa metro area finally cleared on the evening of Thursday, January 26, 2023 after over a week of being clouded over. This provided an opportunity to view the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which is green in color. This is not a good naked eye viewing opportunity, at least not yet. Instead, it requires a telescope, a pair of binoculars, or in this case a camera long exposure to see it. The comet's apparent magnitude was 5.71, only slighter brighter than magnitude 6.5, the limit the human eye can discern in dark skies. The image above is a panoramic stitch made from five separate exposures, each a 15 second exposure at f/1.8, ISO 100, 35mm focal length. It looks north at 7:50 pm CST along North Marion Road at White Road, about 1.5-mile north of County Home Road, and about 2.5 miles north of Marion, Iowa.

Identical image, with an arrow to show the position of the comet.

Cropped version of one of the five exposures, better showing the comet.

Looking northwest at a farm field post from North Marion Road and White Road at 7:53 pm, with same exposure values as the comet images. Air temperature was 11 degrees F. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.