Brisbane Comet PANSTARRS 23rd Feb + *video*

[von Tom]

Fin-o-ly the clouds relented this evening in Brisbane - at least for a successful attempt at taking a photo of Comet PANSTARRS low (7 degrees and less altitude) in the south west. I've attached a Registax stacked image from 115 frames of HD crop mode video from a Canon EOS 600D at 200mm focal length. About 7:25pm and 2 degrees above the horizon.

I could not see the comet at all with binoculars. It was about 9 degrees to the left of Fomalhaut, which itself was a little hard to spot until about 7pm.

More to come.

Tom

[StephenM]

Nicely captured Tom!

I was visiting family in Carindale and had a go as well. Also struggled to find the comet with binoculars, but managed to capture it with the camera (4 secs with 70-200 f/4L at f/4 and 400 iso) just before it set behind Mt Gravatt. Not a great image, but it's the first time I've captured PANSTARRS.

Unfortunately the forecast looks bleak for the next few days, but hopefully it will be clear next weekend...

Cheers,
Stephen

[von Tom]

Good one Stephen! It shows how hard the thing is to see. Clouds again tonight.
I've made a video of the images I caught last night (view in full HD to see the comet!), and added a new stacked image.

http://youtu.be/zZ2LeWTt5yI

Tom

[von Tom]

And another stacked image, while I'm waiting for the Brisbane clouds to somehow clear :)

The constellation Grus is at top left.