The Comet Tempel 9P.

This is the comet at which the satellite Deep Impact is aimed. This image was made about a month before impact.

At the time of this image, Machholz was 0.72 a.u. from earth and 1.59 a.u. from the sun.

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

Fivee 3 minute exposures dark and flat compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and Digitaly Developed in ImagesPlus 2.50.