Quick Comet 46P

[Mickoid (Michael)]

I tried to find this comet a few nights back with my 8 inch f5 Newt but was unsuccessful. Last night, before I went to bed it was warm but relatively clear so I tried with the aid of a star finder chart, to locate it with my 7 x 50 binos.

I had established that if I used the distance between M45 and Rigel to visualise the side of an equilateral triangle, the apex would be close to where Comet Wirtanen would be. So I scanned the area and managed to see a faint smudge that could have been a galaxy or the comet. Well?

Well I ran inside, grabbed my camera and tripod, chucked on the old Pentax 135mm lens and aimed it at the blob. There it was! I felt very satisfied with my detective work and snapped 14 x 4 sec shots, 3200iso @ f3.5, with the Canon 550d. No guiding, no tracking, no flats, just a fixed camera on a Manfrotto tripod. How simple is that! Petty happy too, that you can see some colour from a very light polluted Melbourne sky.

[Lee]

Nicely caught. With some basic tracking you'll be off and running.....

[xelasnave]

Great work Michael...I wish I could do that.
alex

[Paulyman (Paul)]

Someone on Cloudy Nights just posted an image and noticed a smaller blue dot at the 5 O’clock position on their image.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6.../#entry8997119

Am I imagining things or is it there (quite faint) to the left of the comet in your image?

Edit-I don’t mean the brighter star just to the left. You need to zoom in and it is quite faint and close to the comet.

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Paulyman

Someone on Cloudy Nights just posted an image and noticed a smaller blue dot at the 5 O’clock position on their image.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6.../#entry8997119

Am I imagining things or is it there (quite faint) to the left of the comet in your image?

Edit-I don’t mean the brighter star just to the left. You need to zoom in and it is quite faint and close to the comet.

I see what you're looking at Paul but there are stars near to the comet which look similar magnitude to the one very close to it. The guy on CN looks to have used something a little longer focal length than my 135mm lens, so his resolution is so much better than mine. Also, he was tracking the comet, I had no tracking at all so I doubt I would have resolved it.

Another thing, if this guy on CN is from the Northern Hemisphere, I doubt both of us would be viewing it under night skies at the same time. The orientation of our images would be different if it were possible, so it is only a slim chance I have captured the same strange light near the comet.

Very interesting observation though Paul, it would be good to follow up if anyone else has seen this.