Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)—V

The comet continues to climb higher in the northwestern sky after sunset and the tail now stretches across 20–25° of sky. Clouds the past few days have thwarted my efforts to get images but I got a lucky break in the clouds last night (21 July 2020). I had to do a bit of last-minute changes for a location and found myself at the Cultural Park in Sedona, Arizona. I was not alone. There were several groups of people enjoying the cometary show.

Ion and dust trails from Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE).
Ion and dust trails from Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE).

The image was taken with a Nikon 85mm lens, ƒ/2.8, and ISO 400. Four images of 120 seconds were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker. Post processing was done in Lightroom.

Notable in the image are the thin ion trail and the brighter and wider dust trail. Visible in the dust trail are striae, also known as synchronic bands. There are also some minor undulations in the ion tail.