Keep an eye on this one! I would encourage anyone to image this comet as it comes in.
I estimated it on Monday night to be around mag 10.0 - 10.5, its sporting a small tail to the north-west! The bright star was Gamma Corvi.
Quite an easy target, in Corvus, i imaged it with my Canon 400D and 8" SCT. 5 min exp @ 1600 ISO @ f/10. A bit grainy but its only a single image.
Will post finder chart shortly!
Observations are strongly encouraged!!!!
Nice one OBMY, thanks! I managed to (barely) image it at about mag 13 on 2 March, and had earmarked this weekend to have another shot. The ephemeris at MPC has it just a touch under mag 11 then, but I gather from your obs it is a little brighter. It all helps, LOL! Can't wait till June!!
In the 16" tonight it looked about mag 10 -11.
Monday night it was quite noticably moving in only a couple of hours.
Also had a look at 2008 C1 Chen-Goa and 46P wirtanen in low down in Auriga.
Both quite faint.
Ron
I had a go at imaging it last night. I couldn't make it out with the 10 x 50 binos from the suburbs.
100 x 30 secs, DSI Pro + 70-300mm lens @ 150 mm mounted on a scotch mount.
Quick and dirty processing done in Iris.
It was about one hour from starting the first image to finishing the last image. It looks like there was some comet movement in that time (or maybe it is just my processing).
I had a go at imaging it last night. I couldn't make it out with the 10 x 50 binos from the suburbs.
100 x 30 secs, DSI Pro + 70-300mm lens @ 150 mm mounted on a scotch mount.
Quick and dirty processing done in Iris.
It was about one hour from starting the first image to finishing the last image. It looks like there was some comet movement in that time (or maybe it is just my processing).
Nice work , it will be interesting to see how this comet performs, i don't want to get too encouraged but its really hard NOT TO! Keep the images coming! If the brightening trend continues then its more than likely going to reach naked eye mag under dark skies, mag 3.8 is the latest max brightness estimate. Good to see some more people taking on the comet obs, its very encouraging!
I can see this comet is producing a lot of dust, and its about 0.6 AU away from us. Quite close!!!!!
Also had a look at 2008 C1 Chen-Goa and 46P wirtanen in low down in Auriga.
Both quite faint.
Ron
I was going to have a go at those twoas they came up in Starry Night.
But their location for me was getting into the distance light dome of
Casino and glose to the horizon.
regards,CS
Last edited by CoombellKid; 03-04-2008 at 07:13 PM.
Had a look at it just now as it was at 62° alt... bit of a googly now with TYC 6098-875-1 (mag 11) shining right through it. But as Rob said, definitely doable in 8". We'll keep one eye on it...
I took some photos last night but didn't try to look through the eyepiece at it. It is still prety dim. The mag 11 star near it is vastly brighter. Similar on the CCD to mag 13 stars near by but I haven't measured its flux yet. (and can't till I get home tonight)
Hey guys, last night (3/4/08) i estimated a mag of 9.8, and dia of 4.9'. Yes that other star in the field made it a little difficult but it took me nearly 10 mins of observing using VSS method to pin down a comparable star. Made my hand guiding/imaging much easier in amongst all those "bright" stars!!!
I also got some more piccies but havent processed them yet.
Would you believe that i was that tired that i fell off my observing chair and almost onto my telescope around 11pm !!!! After that i called it a night.......
Thanks for that Terry! Will be keen to see your image when you get it done!
Had a shot at it tonight with my crude gear - Canon 400D piggybacked on my little Tasco, hand guiding with slow motion controls on a SW EQ1 mount! Anyway did get something but really needed longer exposures & more subs (the lens dewed up & I couldn't be bothered doing any more, LOL!).
In this shot, the little dim star just above the comet is USNO J120753-175131, mag 11.7 according to SN. So it still seems fairly dim...
Hi All,
I had a go at this comet last night, I used the same settings as 'Outbackmanyep' (thanks for that.) But autoguided with a DSI for
just over 6 min.
Dear Chris et al
I have finally processed some images I took of this comet on Thursday night.
The first file is a stack of 4 x 300 sec exposures through a lum filter.
The second image is just 1 of these images but analised with astrometrica.
It gives a report as
TEL VC200L + CCD
NET USNO-A2.0
CK07W010 V2008 04 03.40318 12 10 19.78 -17 41 52.5 13.5 N 247
The upshot of this is a machine mag of 13.5
This is probably a bit low as I can't sample the entire coma as astrometrica will only let me use a 30 pixel circle to measure the total flux. I can post the fit file if anyone else can analyze it.
Heres my image from the 4th April, its a cropped image of a single 5 minute exposure @ f/10 through my 8" SCT, at ISO 1600 with 400D (N/R ON). I just played around with curves, midtones and contrast. I might try it with NR OFF next time to see if i can make the post processing a little easier to deal with in terms of image fiddling!
It looks yucky but the comet is the only thing i'm interested in.
)
