In fact, the astronomers suspect that there may be other, smaller pieces. They interpret this as the likely presence of a large amount of gas in addition to the dust around these fragments. Quite by chance, a series of research papers based on those and other observations of that comet are being published in today's issue of the research journal Science . Although the comet was low in the western sky, the atmospheric conditions were good and the seeing was excellent, 0.6 arcsec. The telescope was set to follow the motion of the comet in the sky.
North is up and East is left.