C/2021 A1 (Leonard) 2021-Dec-16-17-18 Eliot Herman

Eliot Herman
Comet Leonard outburst and fading
Comet Leonard increased in brightness by more than 2 magnitudes and within a day faded and then faded further in the next day.

COBS (Comet OBSveration database) contributions indicates that C/2021 Leonard had a significant outburst just prior to its recovery in the evening sky on December 15/16 2021. The comet flared to mag 3.5 and then quickly subsided to mag 5 by December 18. These three images were captured with a Vixen VSD 100 mm telescope and a Nikon Z7II camera mounted on a Vixen SXP. About 2.5 minutes of images were acquired with subs and stacked with AstroPixelProcessor and finished with Photoshop. With clouds and haze in Tucson and Comet Leonard gaining altitude each day the differences shown are not normalized and are a qualitative product of the captures. On December 17 there was considerable haze that like reddened the coma shown.

The photos were converted to BW, stretched, and then a inverted to show the coma stretched greatly to show the faint coma. The outburst on Dec 15/16 ejected much coma material. This then appears to be observed as an extended coma trail 24 h later in the middle image on December 17, and without the continuing outburst on December 18th the coma is much smaller and compact in the faded comet.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eliot_photos/51757768070/