The comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas was possible to spot in the constellation Lynx nearly two years ago (April 2020). This comet was discovered on 28th December 2019 by Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. The trajectory of the comet is suspiciously similar to another comet C/1844 Y1, which visited us nearly two centuries ago. Most probably it’s a fragment of the old visitor and the next opportunity to see this comet will occur in the year 2194.

It looks like a droplet drifting through the space. The picture was taken as the first light of the new telescope TS-Optics 150 mm f/2.8 hyperbolic Astrograph. This telescope disappointed me in its optical quality. So, don’t look at the stars in the corners. Postprocessing was quite tricky, but I somehow learned how to do it. In total, I stacked 44 exposures, each 3 minutes long, which means slightly more than 2 hours of integration time.

TelescopeTS-Optics 150 mm f/2.8 hyperbolic Astrograph
Aperture150 mm
Focal length420 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, QHY Mini Guide Scope
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10°C
Corrector2.5" coma corrector
Filtersno
Exposure44x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2020-04-15