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StephenM
07-02-2013, 10:29 AM
Hi all,

I drove about 45 minutes south west of Brisbane last night in search of darker skies to capture this comet. Very easily spotted in 7x50 binoculars from where I ended up. I was using a tripod-mounted Canon 50D and EF 70-200mm telephoto lens, but the comet's closeness to the south celestial pole allowed me to expose for 30 secs without too much trailing. I tried various settings, but ended up stacking 11x30 sec exposures at 200mm, f/4 and 1600 iso (plus 3 darks) using DSS, and then cropping the image a bit. The result is fairly noisy (as expected), but I was able to pick up a hint of the tail (in the 11 o'clock position).

Anyway, thanks for looking.

Cheers,
Stephen

tilbrook@rbe.ne
07-02-2013, 10:34 AM
Nice one Stephen!

Must suck having to drive that far to find some dark skies.

Cheers,

Justin.

StephenM
07-02-2013, 12:11 PM
Thanks Justin! It's a bit of a hassle having to drive in search of darker skies, but the effort is worth it when there's something of interest in the sky.

Cheers,
Stephen

gregbradley
07-02-2013, 12:41 PM
Nice job.

I imaged this myself last night finally restarting up my CDK17 after quite a hiatus. Thanks to those who posted its approaximate location I sent the scope there and viola there it was in the frame! I thought it might be a struggle to find it. Its quite bright.

Do you know if its moving towards the sun or away from it? Jan/Feb must be comet month as last year this time of year we had 2 comets also.

Greg.

Larryp
07-02-2013, 01:38 PM
Nice image, Stephen!

Shark Bait
07-02-2013, 01:49 PM
Astronomy Australia 2013 lists Comet Lemmon reaching perihelion on 24th March 2013.

StephenM
07-02-2013, 05:02 PM
Thanks guys!

Here's a single frame which also caught a passing satellite!



That's correct, so it will continue brightening for a few more weeks hopefully!

Cheers,
Stephen

anthony.tony
10-02-2013, 04:16 PM
Nice work - Tony.

astronobob
10-02-2013, 04:35 PM
Nice one Steve, I was out south of Beaudessert last night, but found high altitude thin stratas cloud between the main cloud, didnt get onto it at all really ! Great too see how its captured with the 70-200, which was what I had, so maybe next time !
Nice image !