This image was taken just about a day before Comet NEOWISE made its closest approach to Earth. It was already receding from the Sun, after reaching perihelion on July 3.

The comet was very bright (about magnitude 1) in early July, and it was about magnitude 3 when this picture was taken on July 21. This was the brightest comet to pass by since Hale-Bopp in 1997. It was visible with the naked eye for a few weeks when it passed through Ursa Major in the early evenings for viewers in the northern hemisphere. This picture shows the broad yellow dust tail and the blue ion tail.

The comet has a highly elliptical orbit and takes about 6800 years to make one orbit around the Sun.

Image details: Thirty 10-second exposures at ISO 6400, taken with a Canon T6i camera and a telephoto lens at 135 mm, f/5. 

July 21, 2020