The beginning of Thursday evening on the Hill was cloudy but there was hope the skies would clear by 8pm which they did, but transparency was compromised with a thin haze. This made imaging the comet challenging but repeated 5 second exposures provided the presence of the tail and the nucleus appeared somewhat diffuse though this was in part due to the haze.

Sigma Ophiuchi is at the top of the frame on the right. It is an orange-red star but its colour is diluted by the haze. On the left there's a close-up detail of the head.

The comet is positioned near the top left of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.

I attempted to take 150 exposures to stack but lost 7 to dew forming on the lens.

Camera: Nikon Z5
Lens: Nikkor 300/4 w TC1.4 Convertor effective 420mm f/5.6
Tracking: Star Adventurer
Sensor ISO: 1600
Exposure: 5 sec at f/5.6
Processing: Pixinsight 143 images were stacked and integrated. Final tonal adjustments using Adobe Photoshop CC 2025; Topaz Photo AI DeNoise on the cropped integration.