Monday, October 6, 2025

Comet Lemmon continues to brighten

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) continues to brighten as it approaches perihelion on November 7, 2025. In dark skies with good seeing amateurs have photographed Lemmon showing a lovely, thin, long tail and prominent green coma typical of many comets. 

But in my light polluted skies in Maryland imaging comets tends to be problematic. Adding to the situation is that my tree line prevents viewing anything under 20-25 degrees in altitude. This is generally not an issue with deep sky objects as I just need to wait for them to rise high enough. But comets tend to stay close to the sun and typically low on the horizon. In the east, the sky brightens before they get high enough and, in the west, the opposite is true. Good news is that Lemmon will be better placed when it can be seen in the western skies about 30-60 minutes after sunset towards month's end. My western skies have the minimal amount of light pollution. My latest attempt on imaging Lemmon is shown below. No long tail but showing a well-defined nucleous and coma. In addition, the red giant star Tania Australis makes a nice contribution to the photo, contrasting with the green glow of Lemmon's coma.

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon)
October 6, 2025, 5:40AM EDT - 19 stacked 90sec Subs
William Optics GT102 APO and ZWO ASI533mc camera 

Observational data in the Comet Observation database (COBS) show that the current light curve for Lemmon is holding true and the estimates of maximum brightness (anywhere from magnitude 3.5 to 5.5) are still on track. Let's hope so.



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