Comet C/2025 R2 Swan over Oamaru, NZ

[kiwiapple]

I only learned of this comet's existence the other day (I think it was a surprise to the people who discovered it, too), and I wasn't sure I'd be able to shoot it since it's rumoured to be heading away from the sun and it's only visible for a short time after dusk. But today we had the right conditions (and it's my birthday, to boot) so I gave it a go. I used a Seestar S50 to shoot it, and collected 10 minutes' worth of 10-second exposures to produce this result.

 

[JimFox]

Happy Birthday James!!!

That's awesome you captured it. I tried to capture it the last 2 nights. I had kept my Seestar and regular astro rig setup from 2 nights ago, so last night I could just start imaging and GoTo without needing it dark enough to PA. But it's so low in the sky in North America, I just could never find it until it was below the horizon. I tried hard last night, but nothing sadly.

And yeah, I heard about this one a couple of weeks ago. It was darker, but had gotten brighter about 5 or 6 days ago, so I was hoping I could catch it. I will try again tonight as I think for me it's going to be slightly higher in the sky, but not sure if it will be high enough before it gets dark enough to see it.