These objects are close enough that we can detect the motion of these objects as they orbit around the Sun or around one of the planets. We first need to calculate where the particular object of interest will be from moment to moment during the period we will be observing it, and then we need to precisely move our telescope to exactly match our calculations. Dust and gas particles flowing towards the anti-solar direction produce the comet's tail. Based on the sharpness of the central condensation in both images, these test observations confirm Subaru Telescope's ability to do non-sidereal tracking. This clears the way for studies of objects within our solar system.
Stars appear streaked because the telescope was moved to follow the comet.
The star-streaks show three colored segments, one for each of the exposures taken sequentially through a different color filter to create the final color composite. All rights reserved.