Comet ISON Passes Through Virgo

Comet ISON shines in this five-minute exposure taken at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on 8 Nov. at 5:40 a.m. EST. The image has a field of view of roughly 1.5 degrees by 1 degree and was captured using a color CCD camera attached to a 14" telescope located at Marshall. At the time of this picture, comet ISON was 97 million miles from Earth, heading toward a close encounter with the sun on 28. Nov. Located in the constellation of Virgo, it is now visible in a good pair of binoculars.