Comet 2025 R3 PANSTARRS

2026/04/12. One hundred one-second exposures pulled this one out of brightening dawn on Sunday morning. The trees at the community lot have grown, there was haze in the sky, the light of the rising Moon, and the looming sun all made it tough. Pervasive artificial light didn't help, but honestly it was the least of my concerns. The sky was so dismal, I had trouble finding the Great Square of Pegasus. I finally recognized the cyanogen gleam of the comet's head and made several photo runs with the 105mm Sigma and the Canon R6 on the SWSA tracking mount. I had casually polar-aligned the mount using an iPhone app. That worked much better than well enough.

100x1s, 105mm F1.4, ISO 3200, Canon R6

Go on, click it to make it bigger and better. Please. Other experiments in earlier, darker skies using 2-second exposures and both 1600 and 3200 ISO also worked, but in the end, one hundred frames in rising twilight beat 30-70 frames in somewhat darker, perhaps somewhat hazier air.

The bright star is Markab, aka "Alpha Pegasi" although it is described as the "third brightest star in Pegasus." So why "Alpha?" Go figure. Anyway, it's the southwest corner of the Great Square, and the comet was well boxed within said square. There's about 4 degrees of tail captured there which is less than half of what imagers under decent skies are catching, but it's far more than I could see with 14x70 binoculars. The data reaches to just below 13th magnitude. Not bad. I am sure much more is possible. Did I mention what dreadful skies I enjoyed this morning?

Sungrazing comet 2026 A1 MAPS evaporated near perihelion a couple of weeks ago; this one is the consolation prize. Unless we are very lucky, it will emerge into the evening sky too low to be spectacular when viewed from mid-northern latitudes such as mine.

I'm still awaiting the proper mix of calm and inspiration to install, configure, and tweak all that is needed to get the Mele 4C and Wave 100i to perform as desired. All in good time. A prospective use just far enough out to not feel rushed would help as would blind resignation to just get it all done at last.

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