Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) on its approach to perihelion. Here, four days of data from PUNCH shows its growing tail as it brightens significantly. The data are essentially straight off the spacecraft and minimally processed, hence some of the artifacts.
Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) just got brighter by nearly a full magnitude (up to ~Vmag~9.4) - as seen in data from March 24th with data from the PUNCH spacecraft.
This is just ~40 images. PUNCH takes ~180 clear filter images per day per WFI spacecraft (3x of them). It takes 1,080 polarized images per day per WFI, for a total of over 3700 images from the three WFI spacecraft. Not every spot in the sky is in the field of view is in every image.
Here is a stack of all of the images from 4-November. This is the outcome from co-adding the images together after shifting them along the trajectory of the comet.
3I Atlas from 4-November-2025 in clear filter images from PUNCH WFI1 spacecraft. These are single images with 22 second exposure at the lowest level of processing - hence the various artifacts. Atlas is clearly visible in single images, its around visual magnitude ~9.5.
3I/ATLAS is behaving just as a comet should. No shenanigans. Looking forward to the possibility of JUICE (a European spacecraft heading eventually to Jupiter) observing this object in the coming weeks!
It is at really low solar elongation right now, only about 15 degrees away. So you would have to go chasing it before Astronomical twilight. This is why these heliospheric imagers (PUNCH etc.) are so damned useful right now!
Comet 3I Atlas from Level 0 data on 29-October from clear filter images on WFI3 from PUNCH. Its in there... it is very clear in the stack of these images.
Interstellar comet 3I Atlas from all clear filter data from PUNCH's WFI3 satellite on October 29th. This is the combination of 134 separate images. It's again visible in single frames (moving coming next). Probably visual magnitude ~9.5ish.
Again - PUNCH data is publicly available (I am not on the team)...
punch.space.swri.edu/punch_scienc...
The comet is currently at a solar elongation of ~10degrees - so it's only 10 degrees away from the Sun on the sky. This is why ground-based observatories can't really observe it now. PUNCH, of course, is built to observe really close to the Sun, so Atlas is in its field of view non-stop right now.
Comet 3I Atlas is back in the field of view of the PUNCH WFI instruments. Here is co-added stack of all of the images from the clear filter (centered around 550nm) from October 27th.
Comet 3I Atlas in PUNCH WFI imagers. This is a stack of all images from all three WFI imagers on 3-October. The streaks are from a star removal process. Thanks to Simon Porter for building this.
PUNCH collects data with four spacecraft all day, every day. The data are publicly available (I'm not actually on the team), and can be found here. The Level 0 data come out right away and L1 are a week behind.
punch.space.swri.edu/punch_scienc...
While 3I Atlas is getting to harder to see from Earth, heliospheric images in space are still tracking. Here is a movie from PUNCH tracking it yesterday (8-October).
A starfield from the PUNCH mission shows two comets: SWAN and the interstellar comet Atlas.
Comet 3I/Atlas is a fun challenge for PUNCH. We're very sensitive, though not a "telescope" (~2.5' resolution: basically naked-eye). At mag 12, the sky is *very* crowded. But we can see Atlas and SWAN in nearly-raw data. We're imaging at 4 minute cadence 24/7; FOV is 90° centered on the Sun. 🧪🔭🛰️☀️
