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The early morning of 24 May 2014 featured this one-night-only tableau, when bright, magnitude-8 Comet C/2012 K1 (PanSTARRS) passed within a few arcminutes of spiral galaxy NGC 3614. At the time of this photograph the center of the head of the comet was about 8 arcminutes away from the center of NGC 3614. In between the comet and NGC 3614 is smaller galaxy NGC 3614a, which despite its name is unrelated to NGC 3614 since it is about three times farther away from us. This is an LRGB image from stacks of 2-minute subexposures.

This image appeared in the September 2014 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine.