Explanation:
Recorded on August 2,
this telescopic composite
image catches
Comet Garradd
(C/2009 P1)
in the same field of view as
globular
star cluster M15.
The celestial scene would have been a rewarding
one for influential 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier.
While Messier scanned French skies for comets,
he carefully cataloged positions of things which might be
fuzzy and comet-like
in appearance but did not move against the background stars and
so were definitely not comets.
M15 (lower right), the 15th entry in his famous
not-a-comet
catalog,
is now understood to be a cluster of over 100,000 stars some 35,000
light-years distant.
The comet,
discovered in August 2009 by astronomer G. J. Garradd
(Siding Spring Observatory, Australia)
is currently
sweeping across
the constellation Pegasus, some 13
light-minutes from Earth.
Shinning faintly around 9th magnitude,
comet Garradd will brighten
in the coming months,
predicted to be
just below naked eye visibility near its peak in February 2012.
