The scorched core of sungrazing Comet Lovejoy is still intact as it recedes from the sun. Even the comet's flamboyant tail, temporarily lost in transit through the solar corona, has regrown. Click here to view the last 24 hours of coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).







SOHO images show two tails: the ion tail and the dust tail. The ion tail is made of gas and is blown directly away from the sun by the solar wind. The heavier dust tail is curved and more closely traces the comet's orbit.



Now that the comet is more than five degrees from the sun, it is possible (albeit still not easy) for amateur astronomers to photograph it just before sunrise. A team led by Czech astronomer Jan Ebr captured this image at sunrise on Dec. 17th:



Comet Lovejoy
© Jakub Cerny, Jan Ebr, Martin Jelinek, Petr Kubanek, Michael Prouza, Michal Ringes
"We used a remotely-controlled 12-inch telescope in Malargue, Argentina," says Ebr. "The sun was below horizon at the time we took the picture, but just barely. There was only a 30 minute window between the rise of the comet and that of the sun "