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Tsuchinshan, take a bow

Hao Liu, taken near Nanjing, China

The name Tsuchinshan was on world’s lips this year when Comet C/2023 A3 — otherwise known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS — burst into naked-eye view. The name refers to Tuschinshan Observatory (or Purple Mountain Observatory), which was the first to discover the comet. In this image, the Moon rises behind the facility outside of Nanjing, which was founded in 1934 as China’s first modern astronomical research institute. The photographer captured the scene with a Nikon DSLR and zoom lens at 500mm with an exposure of 1/50 second, f/5.6, and ISO 1000.