Before dawn on the morning of November 19, 2013, I went out with my digital camera and a telephoto lens to capture this image of Comet ISON. It was low in the eastern sky among the stars of Virgo. The comet is the small bright object in the upper-right corner of this wide-field image. A short tail can be seen stretching for about 1/3 degree to the upper right.
On November 28, Comet ISON made a very close approach to the Sun, just about 1 million miles away. The Sun's intense heat caused it to gradually disintegrate. As a result, it was greatly dimmed after it rounded the Sun, and by mid-December the Hubble Space Telescope found nothing left of the comet.
This comet is classified as a Sun-grazer, and such comets often do not survive their close approaches to the Sun.
November 19, 2013