{"id":340128,"date":"2025-12-10T20:09:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T20:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340128\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T20:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T20:09:13","slug":"photographer-captures-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-glowing-over-egypts-black-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/340128\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer captures interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS glowing over Egypt&#8217;s Black Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following its passage behind the Sun in autumn 2025, interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS is now visible in the winter night sky to those with a telescope.<\/p>\n<p>The emergence of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/comet-3i-atlas-c-2025-n1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3I\/ATLAS<\/a> into the night sky means that even amateur astronomers can get a good look at it.<\/p>\n<p>Many are finding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/reviews\/smart-telescopes-guide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">smart telescopes<\/a> are a great way to instantly hone in on and capture beautiful images of the comet.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3i-atlas-webb.jpg\" alt=\"The James Webb Space Telescope observed interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS on 6 August 2025 with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument. Credit: NASA\/JWST\" class=\"wp-image-176699\"\/>Credit: NASA\/JWST<\/p>\n<p>3I\/ATLAS is an interstellar comet, meaning it originated beyond our Solar System, and is temporarily passing through our cosmic environs.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been imaged by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/hubble-3i-atlas-july-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/3i-atlas-spherex-webb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/comet-3i-atlas-nasa-solar-spacecraft\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NASA solar missions<\/a>, and even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/comet-3i-atlas-mars-observations-planetary-defence\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mars spacecraft<\/a> and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/juice-3i-atlas-november-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">European probe on its way to Jupiter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But this more terrestrial capture of comet 3I\/ATLAS comes courtesy of Osama Fathi, a photographer who photographed the interstellar comet over Egypt&#8217;s Black Desert.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1499\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3i-atlas-egypt-black-desert.jpg\" alt=\"Image of comet 3I\/ATLAS over Egypt's Black Desert, captured by Osama Fathi, 29 November 2025, 03:00 local time. Equipment: Nikon Z6 astro-modified camera, RedCat telescope lens\" class=\"wp-image-179492\"\/>Image of comet 3I\/ATLAS over Egypt&#8217;s Black Desert, captured by Osama Fathi, 29 November 2025, 03:00 local time. Equipment: Nikon Z6 astro-modified camera, RedCat telescope lens<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the heart of Egypt\u2019s Black Desert, where volcanic hills rise like silent sentinels and acacia trees stand alone against the night, an object from another star system drifts through our sky: interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS,&#8221; says Fathi.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In this frame, the faint green glow of 3I\/ATLAS slips between the desert trees, a visitor older than our Sun, passing through the Solar System only once before returning to interstellar space.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The comet\u2019s subtle cyan hue comes from faint cyanide radical gas emission in its coma; a chemical fingerprint shared with distant comets but arriving here from a planetary system we will never see.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3i-atlas-black-desert-egypt.jpg\" alt=\"Image of comet 3I\/ATLAS over Egypt's Black Desert, captured by Osama Faithi, 29 November 2025, 03:00 local time. Equipment: Nikon Z6 astro-modified camera, RedCat telescope lens\" class=\"wp-image-179491\"\/>Credit: Osama Fathi<br \/>\nHow to photograph 3I\/ATLAS<\/p>\n<p>If you want to capture an image of 3I\/ATLAS yourself, you can read our guide on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/astrophotography\/astrophoto-tips\/how-to-photograph-a-comet\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">how to photograph a comet<\/a>, or take advice straight from Fathi himself!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This image was captured using an astro-modified Nikon Z6 camera paired with a RedCat telescope lens,&#8221; he says, &#8220;pushed to 3\u00d7 optical zoom to achieve an effective focal length of about 750mm. That was enough to isolate this rare traveler against the desert horizon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To reveal the comet\u2019s structure and faint gas halo, the scene was stacked from 60 exposures of 60 seconds at ISO 1500, then 60 exposures of 30 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These long integrations allowed the comet\u2019s delicate coma and motion against the background stars to emerge clearly, even under the extremely dark Saharan skies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This frame was planned and captured from the\u00a0Black Desert\u00a0in Egypt on the night of\u00a029 November 2025.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I began the session around\u00a003:00 in complete desert silence. No city lights, just the dark silhouettes of the trees and the pure sky above.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In that still, beautiful scene,\u00a03I\/ATLAS\u00a0appeared in the field of view: a faint visitor from another star system, crossing our sky once in a lifetime while the desert slept.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>See more of Fathi&#8217;s work via his Instagram profile <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/osama.fathi.nsw\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@osama.fathi.nsw<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Send us your astrophotos by emailing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/news\/mailto:contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following its passage behind the Sun in autumn 2025, interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS is now visible in the winter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-340128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}