Comet Neowise passing earth at its closest point

Comets are things of beauty that only come around once in a blue moon, long regarded as mythical objects in the night sky and under intense research by astronomers around the world. When Comet Neowsie passed by earth last year I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to photograph it.

What exactly are comets? Well, to make it easier let's break it up. Firstly, you have meteoroids - otherwise known as shooting stars - which are objects flying around space ranging from dust particles to large rocks that when entering the earth's atmosphere at such high speeds burn up and disappear. This burning up process is what we see as "shooting stars."

The Explora Observatory from where I photographed the comet

Then you have asteroids which are also pieces of rock but much bigger and orbit the sun. Beyond Mars there is what's known as the asteroid belt which holds millions and millions of asteroids orbiting the sun. If one of these ever hit earth our extinction would be much quicker than we are currently doing now! And finally you have comets, which are huge asteroids covered in ice. They also orbit the sun but much further away than the planets and when they get closer to the sun the gases are released due to the warming of the sun and release the tail as we sometimes see it. Here's my best attempt of photographing it from our telescope.