Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS)
Taken by José J. Chambó on May 19, 2026 @
Rio Hurtado, Chile
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Details:
Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) imaged on May 19, 2026, just as it was displaying its most impressive tail against a rich backdrop of interstellar clouds and the dense star fields of the southern winter Milky Way.
At nearly the same time I was capturing a closer view focused on the coma and brightest section of the tail, I also acquired a second wide-field image with a different goal in mind: to record as much of the comet's tail as possible. The result was a completely different perspective of the same object, one in which the immense ion tail becomes the main attraction, stretching across a large portion of the field.
Shining at around magnitude 7, the comet showed a vivid bluish-green coma surrounding a bright central condensation. Two distinct tail components were visible: a shorter, broader dust tail emerging from the head, and a remarkably narrow ion tail that begins almost straight before developing a pronounced wavy structure. The full extent visible in this image reaches approximately 6.5 degrees, spanning the sky from Monoceros into Canis Major.
The image also highlights the rich celestial scenery through which the comet was moving. Its tail appears to weave its way across extensive hydrogen clouds and dark interstellar dust lanes that characterize this region of the Milky Way, creating a particularly rewarding wide-field view filled with subtle detail.
In the end, that extra image taken "just in case" revealed something unexpected: how far the comet's tail actually extended.
C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) @ 2026-May-19, 00:02 UT
Samyang 135 f/2, ZWO ASI 2600 MM. L=9x240s RGB=1x120s, FOV=386x257'(crop), N:Down E:Right. Río Hurtado, Coquimbo (Chile). J. Chambó
Photographer's website:
https://cometografia.es
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