Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a long-period Oort cloud comet that was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) on 3/2/2022 when it was 400 million miles from Sun.
The comet made its closest approach to the Sun at 103 million miles on January 12th, 2023 and was closest to Earth on February 1st at 26 million miles. For comparison, the Earth is about 93 million miles from the Sun.
The comet's orbital period was about 50,o00 years.
During the period of time the exposures were taken for this image, there was a comet tail disconnection event.
The crook in the comet's tail visible in this image was a small portion of that tail disconnection event.

Date: January 21st, 2023

Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 14" telescope using a Hyperstar v4 lens
Mount: Astro-Physics AP-1200 GTO CP3
Camera: ZWO ASI-2400 MC Pro one-shot-color camera
Guiding: Telescope: AstroTech AT72ED, Camera: ASI-120 MM
Exposures: 100 30-second exposures using a IR/UV cut filter
Image acquisition and guiding: ASIAIR Plus

Image processing Software: PixInsight v. 1.8.9.1