Astronomy Picture of the Day - Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way

NASA ^ | 25 Nov, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Lin Zixuan (Tsinghua U.)

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different distances. The closest spectacle is the snowcapped Meili Mountains, part of the Himalayas in China. The middle marvel is Comet Lemmon near its picturesque best early this month, showing not only a white dust tail trailing off to the right but its blue solar wind-distorted ion tail trailing off to the left. Far in the distance on the left is the magnificent central plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, featuring dark dust, red nebula, and including billions of Sun-like stars. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is already fading as it heads back into the outer Solar System, while the Himalayan mountains will gradually erode over the next billion years. The Milky Way Galaxy, though, will live on -- forming new mountains and comets -- for many billions of years into the future.

[MtnClimber]

To be added or removed from the Astronomy Picture of the Day ping list please send me a request via "Private Reply" (Mail).

For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[NavyShoe]

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comet photograph like that before. Two tails…that blue one!

[SkyDancer]

And this is just one galaxy.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Gorgeous!

[husky ed]

Serious question…

Since we’re. On earth, and in the Milky Way… just how can we take pictures of the Milky Way? And where are we in the Milky Way? Ed

[telescope115]

What a spectacular photo!

[MtnClimber]

What we can see of the Milky way are the spiral arms in the rotational plane of the galaxy. That is why it looks like a band.

[telescope115]

We can take pictures of the Milky Way by leaving the shutter open on a camera to capture enough light to produce such an image. The camera also needs to track the stars so the image isn’t blurred. This is achieved by polar alignment of the tracking platform that the camera is attached to, and the platform needs to be motor driven to compensate for the Earth’s rotation.

To your second question, this link should help you understand where we are in the Milky Way Galaxy- we’re kinda in the outer reaches-

https://astronomyexplained.com/where-is-earth-in-the-milky-way-galaxy/

[husky ed]

Thank you for answering my question. Unfortunately I don’t have my cameras anymore.
But for some reason I couldn’t wrap my mind around it until you explained it.