Comet and aurora photos at Old Kilcullen

These photographs of the Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, also titled C/2023 A3, were taken on Monday last at Old Kilcullen by local dentist Raluca Dana Lica, writes Brian Byrne. The comet was discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in China on 9 January 2023 and independently found by ATLAS South Africa on 22 February 2023.

The comet passed at its nearest distance to the Sun on 27 September 2024, at a distance of 58 million kilometres and around then became visible to the naked eye. Its brightest magnitude from Earth was on 9 October, and the closest approach to Earth was on 12 October 2024, at a distance of 70.31 million kilometres.

Raluca, whose passion is astro-photography, used a Sony a7iii for the comet photos, with a Sony 20mm f/1.8 for the tower picture and a Tamron 70-180mm f/2.8 for the closer version. As the shots were in stacks, the exposures may have varied between 5 and 8 seconds for the first and between 2 and 4 seconds for the other. All were taken using a static tripod, and though the camera is full-frame, the photos are cropped.

Raluca also took some Northern Lights aurora photos at Old Kilcullen, on 10 October, pictured below. She is an award winner for her astrophotography.

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