This is a follow-up to my July 29 post. Comet NEOWISE has faded rapidly in the last eight days as it continues to move away from the sun and the earth.
These pictures were taken on August 6 when the comet was only 1/8 as bright as it was when the previous pictures were taken on July 26.
Although it is now much too faint to be visible to the naked eye, the comet is still moving rapidly in front of the background stars. These first two images show how far the comet moves to the left in the space of less than half an hour.
Comet NEOWISE on Aug 6 at 9:30pm (1 min exposure)
Comet NEOWISE on Aug 6 at 10:00pm (1 min exposure)
(The second image shows fewer faint stars and less detail in the comet tails because the comet was closer to the horizon and the seeing became poorer as time went on.)
This third image is a stack of 18 separate one-minute exposures aligned on the coment nucleus instead of the background stars. This causes the background star images to show as trails instead of as points of light.
You can more easily make out the ion and dust tails.
Comet NEOWISE on Aug 6
The orbit of Comet NEOWISE around the sun is such that it will not be returning for another 6700 years.