Skywatchers have been treated to a special visitor this month, as the ‘horned’ comet 12P/Pons-Brooks streaks across the night sky.
Currently, this celestial vagabond is visible to those with a pair of good binoculars or a telescope but by the end of March, it may brighten to 5th magnitude, making it visible to the naked eye.
12P/Pons-Brooks may even appear during the total solar eclipse on April 8. It will then disappear into the sunset glow through April and will reach perihelion — the point at which it is closest to the sun — on April 21. After that, it will begin fade and become visible to those in the Southern Hemisphere.
Here we take a look at some of the best photos of the ‘horned’ comet from around the world.
Related: Here’s how to see ‘horned’ comet 12P/Pons-Brooks in the night sky this month (video)
This beautiful image captured by landscape astrophotographer Josh Dury shows comet 12P/Pons-Brooks soaring above the Mendip Hills AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), U.K., with the Andromeda galaxy shining brightly above.
“The comet was a rather challenging capture; not really visualising the extent of light pollution visible from my homelands of the Mendip Hills. With this, I had to trial and error a series of compositions until I was satisfied with the one I eventually photographed,” Dury told Space.com. “Even with more integration time, it was possible to observe details in the comet’s nucleus and ion tail that had been distorted by solar winds,” Dury continued.
This isn’t Dury’s first time photographing comets.
“I have been fortunate enough to photograph a number of comets in the past few years, with Comet Neowise from Stonehenge in 2020 and Comet E3 (ZTF) in 2023. So to see Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks was an absolute treat!” Dury continued.
Dury looks forward to the next clear sky opportunity so he can try and capture the comet as it brightens over the next few weeks.
Astrophotographer Osama Fathi photographed comet 12P/Pons-Brooks streaking across the sky above the Black Desert, Egypt with our closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, sitting above.
Not only did Fathi capture the ‘horned’ comet and Andromeda in the same image but also what appears to be a meteor streaking across the star-studded sky! Great work Fathi!
Kaitlin Moore captured this great image of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks above Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, U.S.
“The comet was imaged on a 300mm zoom lens in the west-northwest sky over Lake Mendota, in pretty heavy light pollution,” Moore told Space.com.
The Rome-based Virtual Telescope Project led by Gianluca Masi captured a combination of five 120-second exposures on March 5 showing comet 12P/Pons-Brooks (bottom right) and the Andromeda galaxy.
Amateur astrophotographer Kevin O’Donnell captured this beautiful close-up image of 12P/Pons-Brooks on March 6 just outside Wickenburg, Arizona.
“I drove west away from Phoenix on the Carefree Highway towards the darker skies outside Wickenburg, Arizona to the west where Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is visible, low in the sky, now between the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33),” O’Donnell told Space.com.
“Though the comet continues to brighten, it will also appear closer to the horizon and is less visible due to the brightening moon. It was a magnitude 6.5 object at the time, which is still pretty faint, even in a dark sky with binoculars” O’Donnell continued.
O’Donnell also produced a video of how he captured the image despite the tricky clouds, it can be viewed on his Instagram page @theskydetective.
