A comet soars through the stars

This time-lapse animation, compiled from still images by the Austrian amateur astronomer Michael Jaeger, shows the comet C/2017 S3 gliding through the sky against the background of the fixed stars. Jaeger posted it to the site spaceweathergallery.com on 20 July. 

By day, Jaeger is a newspaper editor, but by night his enthusiasm for astronomy has led him to observe more than 500 comets over the last 35 years. In 1998 he discovered a comet of his very own – known as 290P/Jaeger – and in 2004 the asteroid 78391 Michaeljaeger was named in his honour. 

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