Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) & The Witch Head Nebula: View from Australia

Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) & The Witch Head Nebula: View from Australia

Astrophotographer Trevor Dobson: "Taken back in May this year at Lake Clifton, an hour south of Perth in Western Australia . . ."

C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) is a hyperbolic Oort cloud comet. It passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on April 19, 2026, when it was 0.499 astronomical units (AU) (75 million kilometers) from the Sun. The comet was discovered by PanSTARRS in images obtained on September 8, 2025.

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.

IC 2118 (also known as Witch Head Nebula due to its shape) is an extremely faint reflection nebula believed to be an ancient supernova remnant or gas cloud illuminated by nearby supergiant star Rigel in the constellation of Orion. The nebula lies in the Eridanus constellation, about 900 light-years from Earth.

Image Credit: Trevor Dobson

Image Date: May 7, 2026

Image Details: Seestar S30 Pro, 160mm (520mm equivalent), ISO 200, f/5, 110 x 20 seconds
Release Date: Oct. 9, 2026

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