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Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) held
out some promise for awing skywatchers this spring, but it came in on the
lower end of expectations. Yet through a telescope, it was remarkable.
This image of NEAT was taken
at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson,
AZ, on May 7. It was released yesterday.
The picture has a one-square
degree field of view, or about five times the size of the Moon. Even with this
large field, only the comet’s coma and the inner portion of its tail are visible.
A small star cluster
named C0736-105, or Melotte 72, is visible in the lower right of the image,
between the head of the comet and the bright red star in the lower-right corner.
Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was
discovered on Aug. 24, 2001, by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system
operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The comet will remain visible
for several weeks with binoculars and small telescopes just after sunset, high
in the western sky.
Credit: T.
Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Z. Levay and L.Frattare (Space Telescope
Science Institute) and WIYN/NOAO/AURA/NSF
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