Amateur Astronomer Image, June 1, 2005
Michael Jaeger of Stixendorf, Austria took this image of 9P Tempel 1 when it was near the star 43 Virgo on June 1, 2005. He used an 8"/f-1.5, Schmidt telescope with a CCD camera. This image is composed of 4, 170 sec exposures and uses UV and IR filters.
Tempel 1 is the fuzzy object near the center of the image. But you may notice several other smaller and fainter fuzzy objects. Those are galaxies. Currently this comet is moving through the constellation of Virgo. When we look in that direction in the sky, we are looking out of the Milky Way, our own galaxy, and we can see lots of other galaxies. In this picture, it is easy to tell the comet apart from the galaxies. But when you look in a telescope, both are just faint fuzzies!
CREDIT: Michael Jaeger
