Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS: View from Chile

Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS: View from Chile

Astrophotographer Daniele Gasparri: "Comet C/2025 R3 PanSTARRS is finally visible here in the southern hemisphere, and it's spectacular! This is an image I took on May 2 shortly after sunset. Despite the nearly full Moon and the comet about 10 degrees above the horizon, the Atacama sky did its job."

The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, USA, consists of astronomical cameras, telescopes and a computing facility that is surveying the sky for moving or variable objects on a continual basis, and also producing accurate astrometry and photometry of already-detected objects. The Pan-STARRS Project is a collaboration between the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Maui High Performance Computing Center and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The NASA Near Earth Object Observation Program is the main funder for the operation of the Pan-STARRS telescopes.

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The country shared borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. The Atacama Desert is a desert plateau located on the Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall. This benefits astronomical observations.

Image Credit: Daniele Gasparri
Location: Atacama region, Chile

Technical Data: Skywatcher 200PDS Newtonian on NEQ6 mount. ASI 2600MC camera and average of 11X120 second exposures

Daniele's website: https://www.danielegasparri.com
Date: May 2, 2026

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