Comet 10P/Tempel2
1999 July 9th
Now well placed in the evening sky in Ophiuchus, this comet at mag 12 needs a good dark sky to reveal itself, although I swept it up quite easily last night in the dark of the moon. Visually it appeared as a very faint evenly circular patch, the offset coma only revealing itself on CCD images. The image above is a 4x40 sec exposure with 50cm f/4 and SX CCD. The comet was discovered in 1873 by Wilhelm Tempel from Milan and is a periodic comet with an orbit of 5.5 years. It is currently at its closest to Earth at a distance of 0.65 A.U. but is fainter than predicted. It reaches perihelion in September and in the past has shown rapid increases in brightness so it may well become easier to view. However it is steadily moving south , so by then it may be too low in our skies.
1999 July 10th
Under better seeing conditions tonight I obtained this deeper image