A Wellington photographer has captured an image of a green comet passing Earth.

Mike Green, of Wellington, took 75 separate exposures lasting 90 seconds to assemble the picture of the comet, called C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

It came closest to Earth at the start of February, at a distance of 26 million miles, and was visible with the naked eye.

The comet is from the Oort cloud and is described as a ‘long period comet’, which have orbits lasting from thousands to millions of years.

It shines green because of the effect of sunlight on chemicals in the nucleus.

Its name starts with a C to indicate the type of comet, and the rest of the name means it is the third to be identified in the first half of March 2022, and who discovered it.

The icy nucleus is estimated at a kilometre in size, and its tail of dust and gas spreads out for millions of kilometres as material is released as it is warmed by the sun.

It was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in California in the United States on March 2, 2022.

It is now heading away from Earth and can be seen with binoculars or a telescope in the south eastern sky above the star constellation Orion’s belt.