Comet Lovejoy 27/12, much fainter, tail ~25deg

loomberah (Gordon) · #1 27-12-2011, 09:13 AM

After sleeping through my alarm on boxing day, which was clear morning, I was hoping to catch the comet again today before it faded too much. I had to wait for the cold front cloud to clear after 4am, but then it was nice and clear, although the sky was brightening by then.
This is a 71 sec exposure, I have some others which I'll work on later, and they'll all appear on http://astro.gunagulla.com

Liz · #2 27-12-2011, 09:24 AM

Very nice Gordon.

loomberah (Gordon) · #3 27-12-2011, 09:48 AM

Here's a stack of 5 X 30sec images with a 20mm wide angle lens, taken just after the cloud had cleared. There were storms beyond the horizon to the SE, and there is some light pollution from Newcastle/Sydney in the south lighting up some distant clouds over the Hunter.
A plane flying to the North went across the bottom of the frame, and a satellite trail runs down the Milky Way.

Liz · #4 27-12-2011, 09:56 AM

Thats a beauty!!

renormalised (Carl) · #5 27-12-2011, 10:07 AM

Nice

Comet under attack!!!.

CometGuy · #6 27-12-2011, 07:10 PM

Wow, nice Gordon. Will be interesting to see how long the - very faint - tail will be once it's clear of the milky way.

Terry

loomberah (Gordon) · #7 27-12-2011, 07:30 PM

Yes Terry, I am finding it hard to tell what is tail and what is star cloud at the end of the tail. Lets hope it stays bright enough to see when it moves into a darker sky background!

naskies (Dave) · #8 27-12-2011, 09:49 PM

Nice job! Out of curiosity, it looks like your photo says that it was a 30 sec exposure (bottom-right)? Was it meant to be 71 sec?

loomberah (Gordon) · #9 27-12-2011, 11:23 PM

Oops yea, well spotted, I need more sleep before posting

fixed now.

midnight (Darrin) · #10 28-12-2011, 12:32 AM

Very nice Gordon.

Darrin...

tornado33 · #11 28-12-2011, 10:37 AM

Nice work Gordon. That streak coming up from the nucleus is interesting, I saw same thing in Comet McNaught from Lostock IISAC through a telescope. That kink in the tail near the satellite trail shows well too. I wonder how much mass the comet lost since before perihelion?
Scott

loomberah (Gordon) · #12 28-12-2011, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tornado33

... I wonder how much mass the comet lost since before perihelion?

I reckon most of it is gone, I might try and get some CCD images of it one of these mornings, but I know there was no sign of a central condensation on Uppsala Schmidt images taken by Rob McNaught a few days ago, just a diffuse streak.