This figure shows, on the left, images of Encke on three successive days from November 6 to November 8; on the right, images of ISON are shown for three successive days from November 9 to November 11. Both comets appear to brighten each day (top to bottom).

Green circles indicate some of the brighter cataloged background stars in each image; yellow marks bracket the comets. The background stars are fixed in each image from top to bottom, so the motion of the comet relative to the stars is clear in each case. The images have been smoothed slightly to diminish the distracting sharp edges of the pixels.