COMET LEONARD

Comets frequently pass through our skies, but not many will manage to become naked-eye brightness. Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was 2021’s brightest comet.

Comet Leonard was discovered in January 2021 by Gregory Leonard from images taken from the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona. The comet made its closest pass to the Earth on December 12.

December 11, 2021

We decided to go to Cholla Cactus Garden in Joshua Tree National Park to see if we could get some photos of Comet Leonard before we would not be able to see it from the Northern Hemisphere. We left Friday at around 9 PM arrived at Cholla Cactus Garden around 11:30 PM.

I started shooting Orion Nebula since we had to wait until around 4:30 AM for Comet Leonard to rise above the horizon. After shooting Orion Nebula for about 2 hours, I shut down my setup to preserve whatever battery power I had left (47%) to make sure I could capture the comet in the early morning. I slept on and off in the car between 3 AM – 4:30 AM.

Since I left the mount and telescope in the same spot, I saved time not doing a polar alignment again. While I couldn’t see it with my eyes, the ZWO ASI6200MC Pro was able to capture it. Good thing for the GoTo function of the Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro and that the ZWO ASIAIR PRO had the comet in its catalog to allow the GoTo function without the need for the SynScan hand controller. The sky was getting brighter quickly, and soon the image had a heavy gradient due to the sky being much brighter at the horizon than where the comet was, so I stopped shooting by 5:40 AM. I am thrilled to capture this comet before it leaves our solar system.