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Credit: Miguel Claro
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who captures spectacular images of the night sky. Like one European Photo Ambassador of the Southern Observatory and member of The world at night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reservehe specializes in astronomical ‘celestial landscapes’ that connect both Earth and the night sky.
This close-up image of Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) was taken from the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve in Portugal on October 13, 2024, when the comet showed an impressive level of brightness and detail, as well as a cool ‘anti-tail .’
In this photo, it also appears that the comet’s ion tail is also visible next to its prominent dust tail. Some comets not only trail long tails of dust and gases, but also develop an ion tail, a second tail made up of charged particles that are pushed away from comets by solar radiation and solar wind.
a bright blue streak of light through a starry sky
I processed these using my deep sky techniques to recover as much of the original color and detail hidden in the dust tail, which has mostly been washed out by the bluish background light of the moon and sun.
This image consists of 75 short exposures of 10 seconds each at ISO1600, taken with a 300mm prime lens at f2.8, comprising approximately 12 minutes of footage.
I photographed Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS as Earth passed through the comet’s orbital plane (the flat disk-like shape along which a body orbits the Sun). When comets are viewed along their orbital planes as seen from Earthcan sometimes appear as if they develop an ‘anti-tail’, a tail that points towards the sun rather than away from it, as their other tails do. In the photos it is clearly visible as a forward-facing ‘peak’ emerging from the comet’s nucleus.
The other image of the comet below was taken from a beautiful field in the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve in Portugal. The moonlight shone brightly that night, illuminating the landscape quite well.
a bright blue streak of light through a starry sky
Fine art prints
three prints of a comet leaving a blue streak in the sky
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I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I do, and if you would like to support my work as an independent artist, you can purchase one of my images as a print, artwork or wall decor for your sweet home!
Discover the size options and different types available on my print gallery. In the meantime, you can log in to my newsletter to gain early access to future releases.