Comet Leonard Above Turkey

From the photographer: “In the evening of 2021 December 21st, a week of clouds and rain finally broke away. So, I drove up to Kirazli village, a location I frequently visit near Uludag National Park. The rains of those rains in Bursa fell as snow on the mountain, and it was all white above 450-meter elevation. At Kirazli, at 1200 meters, there was half a meter of fresh snow. As the twilight faded, Comet Leonard started to show up in the pictures. When it got dark enough, Leonard became barely visible to unaided eyes even, a fuzzy thing over the southwest horizon and the snowy landscape; also a few degrees to the left of Venus.

Click the second image to see a wider angle photo, also featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day: Patches of clouds were still here and there, on the move with the cold wind, from north to south. When I shot this wide angle picture, the three evening planets Jupiter, Saturn and Venus were visible through the gaps in the clouds, while Leonard was also visible over the clearer horizon. It was a really nice sight, and a fine beginning to the longest night of the year.”