[lazjen (Chris)]

With C/2020 F8 SWAN kicking around, I'm thinking about having a go at it. I haven't done any comet imaging before, so this will be my first attempt. I've done some searching and it seems that using a colour camera is the best way to go.

I don't want to do that, as I've got my mono + filters setup right now and I'm in the middle of a multi-night imaging run that I don't want to disrupt. The comet is convenient in that it's currently up, right near the end of my imaging session.

So, I'm trying to work out how to do the LRGB imaging for this, using the ASI1600MM on the Sharpstar 107PH.

My current thoughts are to do the following:

1. Use short exposures, maybe 10 to 15 sec per filter.
2. Rotate through each filter.
3. Don't bother guiding and therefore no dithering.
4. Use a higher gain - maybe 200? (at -15C for the cooling, I probably could go lower for this)

If I try this tonight, I think I might have a maximum of 1 hour to image the comet before the sun rises - I've got some obstructions in that direction that will limit how low I can go.

At 15 sec per filter (plus a little bit for filter change), no errors in acquisition, I'd get nearly 240 images per channel for 1 hour (probably closer to 180 - 200), which I think should be enough to offset using gain 200.

I'll worry about the processing side of things later - for now I'd like thoughts on this approach and/or suggestions to do better to ensure I have the greatest chance of getting some usable data.