

Comet Wirtanen and star clusters
As the
comet Wirtanen gets closest to the Earth, it also gets to one of the most beautiful part of the sky – the constellation Taurus with star clusters
Pleiades (upper left) and
Hyades (lower left). Weather in the Czech Republic is, however, very bad, so I was truly lucky for about 17 minutes of clear skies. Not quite enough for some truly deep imaging, but still worthy for capturing all three object in one view. Comet Wirtanen is now about twice bigger in the sky than the full Moon and its angular diameter still grows. On 16th December, during its
closest approach to Earth, the comet will project very close to the Pleiades… Captured on 10 December 2018, used Canon 6D Baader IR midified, Sigma 50 mm, f3.2, ISO 6400, 33×30 s from
Vixen Polarie mount (darkframes applied).