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Icy Comet NEAT
Date: 7 May 2004
This image of Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was taken at the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. on 7 May 2004.
This color image was assembled by combining images taken through blue, green and red filters. The image was taken with the Mosaic I camera, which has a one-square degree field of view, or about five times the size of the Moon. Even with this large field, only the comet's coma and the inner portion of its tail are visible.
A small star cluster (C0736-105, or Melotte 72) is visible in the lower right of the image, between the head of the comet and the bright red star in the lower-right corner.
Comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) was discovered on 24 August 2001, by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Credit: National Science Foundation
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