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The comet rapidly approached Earth and developed the typical tail pointing away from the sun, as well as an "anti-tail" pointing directly toward the sun. This unusual configuration is fairly rare and only happens when Earth passes through the orbital plane of a rather bright comet.
15 paź 2024 · Comet 2023 A3 - Anti-tail - posted in Comet Observing and Imaging: Here is an image from last night that shows the anti-tail. Its a stack of 120 one-second exposures with a Nikon D610, ISO 6400, 48mm focal length at f4.2. Processed with PixInsight.
Comet Lulin image was taken by me from Langkawi National Observatory, Malaysia this morning (Jan 7, 2009) shows its bright 'tail' and 'anti-tail'. Photo details: RCOS 20", STL11000, LRGB combined, total exposure 24 minutes.
An antitail is an apparent spike projecting from a comet's coma which seems to go towards the Sun, and thus geometrically opposite to the other tails: the ion tail and the dust tail. Despite a common misunderstanding, this phenomenon is not an optical illusion .
15 paź 2024 · According to EarthSky website, an anti-tail is sometimes called an illusion. But it’s real and appears when, as on October 13-15, Earth is crossing the comet’s orbital plane. The website also said, the anti-tail reveals the comet’s past path, or where it has already traveled through space.
30 sty 2009 · A comet on its first approach to the Sun can resist its heat, preventing a bright tail from appearing. But Kronk thinks Lulin will get close enough to our star to make that unlikely.
2 mar 2020 · On 2008 December 19, we detected the anti-tail of Comet Lulin at a very low elevation. Two days later, we were finally able to obtain good-quality anti-tail imaging. Figure 3 shows the anti-tail lying in the sunward direction.
