Comet Leonard with Venus and airplane

[RonAM]

Well, with my laptop dead I resorted to my Canon T3i this evening. Clouds threatened to ruin the view but to my surprise one of the fun shots of an airplane transiting the frame also shows Leonard. He is small compared to the plane contrail. Look about 1/4 up from the center bottom and you can just see him in the midst of the haze. Camera settings are 400 iso, 2-second exposure, 75mm lens. Image was cropped to about 1/3 size.

[Menno555]

Nice threesome Ron.
Had to look hard indeed to see the comet

Menno

[admin]

Hi Ron,

just like Menno, I had to spend a while before I spotted the comet, but definitely there - nice image

cheers,

Robin

[turfpit]

Ron

Got the comet!

Dave

[RonAM]

Thanks- I’d love to see more pictures if available.

One question I have is with respect to the visual orientation of the tail.

As reported in Spaceweather.com around 2100 UTC on the 19th, Venus was to pass through the tail, so look for meteors hitting Venus’ hot atmosphere. No chance to see that since I can barely see the comet.

I understood the tail of comets always (?) point away from the sun, due to the solar wind creating the forces to cause the tail.

But on the 19th the tail is oriented towards Venus as noted in Spaceweather, and this orientation appears far from “away from the sun”.

I’ve attached the reference view from Spaceweather to illustrate.

Any comments on this visual orientation relative to the sun?

[timh]

Just spotted it finally! well done for capturing it
Tim