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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was the great comet of the year 2024. It was easily seen by naked eye with a 10 degree long tail in mid november. The peculiar anti-tail became visible by combining several images to the above view. This tail seems to be directed into the suns direction and is quite narrow. These are larger dust particles distributed along the cometary orbit in reality. The earth was crossing the orbital plane of the comet during that time which enhanced the visibilty of these dust particles considerably. There is no tail into the suns direction in space, it is just dust in the cometary orbit much closer to us or more far away. A better name of this apparition would be "dust trail", since this is the same as the well known sources of the meteor showers. And if you look closely, you see the narrow dust trail continuing through the comets head into the other direction of the broad tail. See also the time lapse of the above view. | ||||||||||||||||||||
