Comet Lemmon Meets NGC 3184

Image Title: NGC3184 photobombing Comet Lemmon

Copyright: Cédric de Decker, Louis Leroux-Géré, Vincent Martin, Thibault Rouillée

Date image was taken: October 05, 2025

Location: Texas, USA

Data Acquisition Method: Personal Telescope Setup

Description and Details: The comet’s tail is extremely changeable. From one night to the next — and even over just a few hours — it’s hard to recognize it, as its appearance evolves so rapidly. Compared to last week, fine details are now starting to appear in the coma and in the different tails.

NGC 3184 is a relatively nearby intermediate spiral galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major. Its velocity relative to the cosmic microwave background is 821 ± 17 km/s, corresponding to a Hubble distance of 39.5 million light-years. NGC 3184 was discovered by the German-British astronomer William Herschel in 1787. It’s humbling to think that a tiny piece of ice—about 2 km in diameter, speeding through our solar system at nearly 200,000 km/h and coming as close as 90 million km from Earth—can share the same frame with a galaxy millions of light-years away…

Name: Vincent Martin

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