This sight was worth getting out of bed early.
Just over four years ago,
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
rose before dawn to the
delight of northern sky enthusiasts awake that early.
Up before sunrise on July 8th, the featured photographer was able
to capture in dramatic fashion one of the few comets
visible to the unaided eye this century, an
inner-
Solar System intruder that has become known as the
Great Comet of 2020.
The
resulting video
detailed Comet NEOWISE from
Italy rising over the
Adriatic Sea.
The
featured time-lapse video
combines over 240 images taken over 30 minutes.
The comet
was seen rising through a foreground of bright and undulating
noctilucent clouds,
and before a background of distant stars.
Comet NEOWISE remained unexpectedly bright for over a month,
with its
ion and dust tails
found to emanate from a
nucleus spanning
about five kilometers across.