You might have seen the news that a couple of comets can be observed currently, making a close flyby of the Earth. These two comets are. C/2025 R2 Swan and C/2025 A6 Lemmon. It's not very often that two comets can be viewed in the night sky. So let's take a look at both of these stellar objects.
Let's start with a more spectacular one.
This comet was discovered on January 3, 2025 and it made a closest approach yesterday, about 79 million kilometers from Earth. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event because its orbital period is 1350 years. Safe to say that none of us is here when it returns again.
This comet was easy to find in the sky. I knew the direction it should be and it was visible right away on my first test shot.
I wanted to get as close as possible. I used my Nikon Z6II camera and Tamron 150-600mm lens to capture this.
The settings of a photo are 12800ISO, 2.5sec shutter speed, f6.3 and 600mm focal length. The photo is only slightly cropped in. I got more detail on the photo than I actually expected.
AI denoise worked well, removing high amounts of noise due to very high ISO.
It was tough to get a clear photo. Finding the focus was relatively easy, but every minimal shake of the camera during those 2.5seconds ruins the shot. The wind was not strong but enough to shake the photo at 600mm focal length. I hide myself at the side of the car, so wind gusts affect me less, and used a delayed shutter so me pushing the camera button doesn't leave vibrations after the photo has started.
The greenish hue is diatomic carbon fluorescing in the sunlight. The dust trail is also well visible and has some texture to it.
Here is the best shot.
Here are some shots taken with a wider lens to get some landscape on too. This puts the visibility of this comet into a better perspective. A lot of satellites in a photo too...
This is the other comet that was actually much closer, 39 million kilometers from the Earth, but it was also much dimmer, not nearly as bright. It was discovered on September 11, 2025. Also a once in a lifetime event, but nobody currently knows the orbital time. It might be thousands to millions of years, or never at all.
It took me a bit of time and test shots to find it in the sky.
I could only see the green dot, unfortunately no dust trail. Sadly, a bit of wind shake on the photo too.
I'm glad I got the photos I got. If you want, you can still observe these comets. Even though they are now past the closest point to the Earth. It was visible to the naked eye and should be until late November in a very dark sky. With a camera, you can find the Lemmon comet until the start of December. After February starts, only large telescopes can detect it.
I'll be finding other brighter comets in our skies if they come across!
