The Comet Machholz.

This comet was discovered in August of 2004 by Don Machholz in Northern California

At the time of this image, Machholz was 0.83 a.u. from earth and 1.36 a.u. from the sun. It will be visible from the northern hemisphere until around May of 2005 and is near its brightest in this image. Note the ion tail near the top of the picture. This image also seems to show a reddish halo around the nucleus.

Images taken with TEC-140 Telescope mounted on Losmandy G11 mount. Camera used was a Canon EOS20D used at prime focus.

Three 3 minute exposures dark and flat compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and Digitaly Developed in ImagesPlus 2.5o Beta 5.