Comet 2001A2 LINEAR. May 22, 2001.
Combination of 4, 1-minute exposures, Meade 416xt CCD. 8" f/6 newtonian at prime focus.
By this time the comet had brightened to magnitude 5.3 and was visible to thenaked eye, even though it was low in the western sky. In the telescope the tail could be followed for around 4 degrees and the coma was around 6' across.
Comet 2001A2 LINEAR. May 22, 2001.
15 minutes exposure. Agfa HDC 400 film and an 5" f/5 refractor at prime focus.
This is a combination of the 2 above photographs. The stars do not line up because of the motion of the comet during the interval bewteen the photographs. The tail is shown a little better, especially division almost halfway along. The direction of the tail is almost south-east. To the lower right from the head of the comet, close to the edge of the image, the globular cluster M79 is visible. On the following night the comet was even closer to M79 and the two objects easily fit in a low magnification field. The cluster is best seen in the first of these photographs above.