Closest Approach of Comet C/2023 A3

OK, C/2023 A3 has survived its swing by the sun and is now speeding away to complete an 80,000 year orbit through the Oort Cloud.

Today the comet made its closest approach to Earth, a mere 70 million kilometers away. It still appears quite close to the sun in direction, so the comet disappears over the horizon shortly after sunset.

Too many trees and such interfere with the view of the western horizon from our Burnaby backyard, so I headed out to a spot near Iona Beach with my DSLR, a couple zoom lenses, and a tripod.

Quite a few people were clustered there, hoping for a glimpse of the comet. For a very long time it seemed the hopes would be in vain, as pretty much the only clouds in the sky were near the western horizon.

I finally did manage to catch a glimpse of the comet with binoculars about an hour after sunset, and then showed the rest where to find it.
At that point I got to work with the camera, and attached a handful of the best images.

I did take a few cellphone images as well. You could see the comet, but not nearly as well as in the DSLR camera images.

The comet was making its way through the fainter stars of the Virgo constellation down towards the mountain peaks of Vancouver Island.
The bright star near the middle of the top edge of the images is 109 Virginis - the right foot of The Maiden.

C/2023 A3 will get higher in the sky as night falls for the next little while, but dimmer as the comet moves away from the sun and Earth.

The weather does not look promising here for the next few days, but if it clears I will likely try to capture some long exposure shots with the telescope.

Nikon D5300 with 70-300mm zoom lens on tripod

NX Studio Brightness/Contrast/Shadows/Gamma tweaks to NEF image
Exported as .jpg