Comet C/2012 K5 (Linear)

2 Feb 2013

One month later the comet is significantly dimmer  and is now at almost 1 AU from Earth

4 Jan 2013

This photo is take near comet's closest passage with Earth at a distance of approximately 47 million kilometers. The comet is located right at the ecliptic plane almost exactly opposite the Sun and therefore its tail is pointing almost directly away from the observer.

10 Dec 2012

Comet tail is over 1' in length

Interesting to compare with a photograph by M.Jager acquired one day earlier

24 Nov 2012

A photo of this long-period comet one week after perihelion passage. The comet will be closest to Earth on December 31, 2012.

Supernovae SN2012aw in Nearby Galaxy M95

I have been following this supernova with the idea to create a time-lapse movie of its fainting, but no noticeable decrease in its magnitude in visible light occurred while M95 was visible high in the sky. In fact, according to AAVSO light curve the reduction in magnitude between the time of discovery by Paolo Fagotti and Alessandro Dimai on March 16 2012 and the last time I was able to take a good photo on May 24 was less than half of magnitude.

This is not surprising since the spectrum revealed that sn2012aw is a Type-II supernova 

Here's its spectrum take by Christian Buil. Notice a very prominent H-alpha emission line at 656 nm -  a clear signature of Type-II. This meas that sn2012aw will shine for a while. Type-II supernovae have a plato in luminosity  that lasts over 100 days.

After a period of invisibility, I took another photo of the Supernovae in November. Now it's noticeably dimmer.

AAVSO light curve:

Also: 

SN2012aw progenitor was found on Hubble images:

Pre-maximum discovery photo (by Associazione Astronomica Cortina).