The very faint tail in Lester's image is about 22 degrees long, the "brightest" part is about 5 degrees.
The greenish Vela SN remnant is visible on the lower left side of the image.
Hi Glen - I make it out to 43 deg and more than probably extending out of frame, 45 deg + (per link below). The Milky Way interferes right near the edge of the frame, a bit hard to tell. http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/w...illengthsm.jpg
Interesting, how do you all estimate lengths? I use the measuring tool in Starry Night. Should be very accurate as it's pretty simple maths - angle subtended at centre by two points on a sphere.
Clouds interfered last night so I got nothing. Great job again Lester!
Despite great dark skies tonight and imaging deeper than I have before, I could only trace the tail to about 5 degrees past Nu Puppis, or 34 degrees in total (subs centred on 11:52 UT, 16 Jan). Canon 400D, 18mm, 5x and 4x 3.5 min, ISO 1600, F/3.5.
Very, very faint trace at that, and not even as far as the Milky Way. I shot two fields covering from the LMC to way past Procyon just in case there was a hint of anything on the other side of the Milky Way. That's about it for me on C/2011 W3, it's continuing to fade and I've pushed my humble gear to the limit.
I've been in touch with Lester and he decided to do an extra night, same objective in imaging across the Milky Way. He'll have more conclusive results than me, but we'll just have to wait to see what he got.
I had a squizz about 2 hours ago with 20X80's and not able to see any trace of Lovejoy. Moon was low in the east but sky clear, LMC and SMC easily visible.
I went to say good bye to Lovejoy on January 14th.
The Comet was accross the LMC tail extending up to Canopus.
Invisible to the naked eye or binos but ok to the Camera (barely)
Top stuff again Rob, to get the tail out to 33 degrees is still Very long. I shot at 1600 ISO with 4 minute exposures last night and 24mm lens at F2. Could see the tail on the rear view screen of the camera to well past Canopus. Did 3 Fov across to Sirius, but like you couldn't detect the tail near the MW.
Yes it is very faint, your inverted images Steve and Luis show the tail well. Mike, IMO any Moon, or stray light/pollution will make viewing the comet a no show. 80mm aperture binoculars should be a chance in dark skies, but the 20x magnification my yield too small a FOV to really show the comet. I have noticed on my images a very small scale shows the extent of the tail best.
All the best.
ps hope to have my image of last nights shoot up this evening.
It looked like being a stunner of a night at sunset last night (16th) but bands of visible cirrus scrolled across the sky parallel to the line of the comet's tail. I could trace it well in my 10 x 50 bino's, but proximity to the LMC meant I couldn't say for sure either way if I could see it with the unaided-eye.
Did some shots with my newly acquired 450D but I had a few technical issues I hope to have the chance to remedy tonight. My widest field currently is on my old Nikon F film camera. I took a couple of 15 minute exposures on some Fuji Superia 1600 that has been sitting in the fridge since McNaught was in the sky five years ago! Checked out the film package and found out it was the official film for the FIFA World Cup in Germany, 2006! I'll do a few more tonight and then process it tomorrow. I'll keep you posted on how it all comes out.
it is a pity that the anti-cyclone over us has developed a 2nd centre because the one still out in the Tasman has dragged some useless cumulus over us now that it has cooled down. Never mind.
My mate Stephen Chadwick stacked my first lot of 6 x 5 minute exposures with my 450D from last night. I hadn't perfected the focussing, and didn't tighten up the tracking so I was hoping to correct all that tonight.
It was set on 35mm @ f/4, 1600 ISO. The negative shot shows more of the tail than I could see with the bino's.
Looks good Ian. I tried gradient mapper on this image, but didn't show as much as the inverted style. For some unknown reason DSS has had a hard time stacking my images tonight, with 2 FVOs having to be redone, at an hour each. This image below was the 2nd FOV captured last night showing the tail passing above Canopus.
Nice job Ian, Lester! Clear night tonight and I decided to give it one more go. Quite pleased with the result, appears to show the tail to around 32 degrees length. There is the vaguest hint of a continuation to the Milky Way but I think it's star alignments leading the eye in, as on the 16th. Details on pic: http://i727.photobucket.com/albums/w...fulltextsm.jpg
Well after having written the night off it promptly cleared. The 1600 ISO film didn't deliver the goods. I would have been better off stciking with the more recent Fuji Superia X-tra 400 which I still have plenty of.
On top of that, after spending a good amount of time getting the focussing right on my Canon 450D I maust have knocked it before my first actual comet shot because the focus had popped.
The real sucess for the night, in fact the only sucess, was the view through my 10 x 50 Nikon's. Transparency was 8/10 and meant that I could trace the tail for two bino fields, about 14 degrees in all.
I'm heading over the mountains to our annual Stardate convention this weekend and hope to have another chance to check it out from there. As well I will be catching up with everyone and chewing over comet tales for those of us who actually saw it, some of my old mates from the top half of the North Island didn't get to see Lovejoy at all, so good has been their summer!
