Christmas comet Lovejoy captured at Paranal

This photo comes from a time-lapse sequence taken by Gabriel Brammer from ESO just two days ago on 22 December 2011. Gabriel was finishing his night shift as support astronomer at the Paranal Observatory when the comet rose over the horizon just before dawn. Comet Lovejoy has been the talk of the astronomy community over the past few weeks. It was first discovered on 27 November by the Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy and was classified as a Kreutz sungrazer, with its orbit taking it very close to the Sun, passing a mere 140 000 kilometres from the its surface.