This image was captured on 13th December 2018, when the comet was approx 12 million kilometres (7.5 million miles) from Earth. It was at perihelion the previous day, when it was around 158 million kilometres from the Sun, just about the same as the Earth-Sun distance.
It lacks the characteristic cometary tails in this image, though there is some asymmetry apparent.
Because the comet was moving fast, at about 10 arcseconds per minute, I was limited to short exposures with the camera at maximum gain.
I also had to go for a wide FOV, as the overall diameter was predicted to be around a degree.
This is the result of stacking 293 30-sec frames, to give approximately 2.5 hours of exposure
Taken with a ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera, through an Altair Astro 102ED telescope, with a 0.6x focal reducer
Date: 13/12/2018
Photographer: Graham Wilcock
