Sure! I lastly captured a picture of comet 3I/ATLAS. This is how I did it

Since it was found on 1 July 2025, by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile, Comet 3I/ATLAS – the third confirmed interstellar object to go to our Solar System – has been the protect of large-aperture beginner devices and complicated astrophotography rigs, orbiting observatories and the cameras onboard area probes and rovers far out within the Solar System.

But that’s altering.

On the morning of 16 November 2025, I used to be capable of picture Comet 3I/ATLAS from the center of Kendal, Cumbria, UK utilizing simply my Seestar S50 good telescope.

And meaning, very excitingly, that the comet is now seen to small telescopes and possibly much less superior cameras too.

Over the following week or so, because the comet climbs larger into the sky and the Moon falls out of the best way, this shall be an excellent alternative for amateurs to see and picture this comet.

Keep updated with what this interstellar customer is doing through our comet 3I rolling weblog

How I lastly captured the comet

Back to the morning of 16 November.

I’d been desirous to attempt to catch Comet 3I for per week or so, after it had moved up excessive sufficient into the morning sky, however the climate was towards me.

Finally, the clouds cleared in a single day, so after my alarm woke me at 4.30am and a peek out the window confirmed a starry sky, I took my Seestar S50 all the way down to the river, hoping to bag this intriguing interstellar customer.

It was a freezing chilly morning, with the primary indicators of frost twinkling on the bottom – completely good for Seestar astrophotography – however I wasn’t assured of success.

Shining just a little brighter than tenth magnitude in response to different stories, I knew that an object of that brightness would normally be no problem to my good telescope, excessive in a darkish sky.

But this morning the comet was going to be very low within the sky, scraping the treetops, and it was going to be in an space of the sky cluttered with streetlights and really near the intense waning crescent Moon too.

So the chances, it’s truthful to say, have been towards me.

But after discovering a bench with a transparent view of the Moon, I arrange, star-hopped down from Porrima to the realm of Virgo the place I knew the comet was (frustratingly, it’s not in my Seestar’s comet database but) and began taking photographs round 5am.

And these photographs have been terrible!.

With rainbow streaks of intruding moonlight and the glare of streetlights splashed throughout them, they appeared like images of oily puddles.

But down on the backside, on the left, was a tiny smudge, like a fuzzy star…

I checked the place of the article utilizing one among my astronomy apps and will hardly consider it: the fuzzy star was the comet, 3I.

Gotcha!

I spent the following hour taking extra photographs of the comet, repeatedly altering location every time the comet was too near a streetlight.

It was only a smudge, and grew progressively fainter and tougher to see because the sky started to brighten with the strategy of daybreak till finally it light out of view altogether and I headed again house, barely capable of really feel my arms however delighted with what I’d managed to seize.

Now I’ve processed my photographs, it’s beginning to sink in simply how particular they’re.

My photos of a tiny smudge aren’t spectacular in any manner – they’re by no means going to characteristic in a flowery astrophotography calendar – however they’re photographs of an object from one other star system, someplace out within the Milky Way.

This is a comet that was already billions of years previous earlier than our Sun was even born; snatched portraits of an interstellar wanderer that spent hundreds of thousands, if not billions, of years travelling silently via the starless depths of our Galaxy earlier than our Sun started to mild up the darkness forward of it like a lantern on a distant shore.

And they have been taken from beneath the streetlights that run alongside a river within the centre of a light-polluted city, utilizing a telescope that has been insultingly described as a ‘toy’ by many individuals.

Yeah, no matter. While they have been quick asleep of their beds that morning, my ‘toy’ was taking photographs of a comet that was born billions of years in the past within the mild of an alien solar.

So, when you’re desirous to see and picture this fascinating object, simply give it a go!

You don’t have to have a telescope the dimensions of a WW2 battleship cannon, or a digicam that prices hundreds of kilos now. It’s there, ready for you.

Go get it!

If you handle to seize a picture of comet 3I/ATLAS, ship your photographs to us they usually may seem in a future challenge of BBC Sky at Night Magazine