By Vineeth Kaimal | 2023-01-21
![Community photo entitled by Eliot Herman on 01/26/2023 at Tucson AZ](https://earthsky.org/upl/gravity_forms/6-d184048789a60d766a02a8e43117298b/2023/01/anti-tail-changes-ES.jpg)
On 01/26/2023 03:00 am by Eliot Herman| Tucson AZ
As Comet 2022 E3 ZTF moves beyond the plane of Earth's orbit the rarely seen anti-tail is fading. These images show the difference between January 25 (left) and 26 (right), 2023. The anti-tail is an illusion generated by the angle of the viewer, those of us on Earth, presented as the comet passes through the Earth's position on the plane of the ecliptic. The comet is a striking sight, just inside the naked eye magnitude now, through a telescope the head and tail are now visible and with photography even with a small backyard telescope it pops.
Each image was captured with a Vixen VSD 100 mm F3.8 astrograph lens, 50 x 20 sec with a Nikon Z7II @ iso 1600
Astropixel Processor to stack and adjustments with Photoshop.