Comet C/2005 A1

[beren]

Tried last night to view this comet near gobular cluster 47Tuc , unsuccessful both visually and with a camera , anyone have luck , try again tonite :astron:

[rumples riot]

Might have a look tonight if we can fit it in. Near 47 Tuc you say.

[Striker]

Yep we all saw it last night on Andrews dob...very small but we all got a bit of a peek....

Andrew might elaborate on this further...

[astro_south]

Yeah, I heard it was there and located it easily enough with a scan around the glob - around 1 degree from 47Tuc Friday night - it was pretty small. Also saw it in a C11 later in the night with high magnification, and the coma showed a tear drop shape leading towards a very faint tail.

[gbeal]

Beren,
since you asked.
It shows all the hallmarks of poor preparation, with a little field rottation etc, but is shows what it needs to.
One thing that was obvious was the difference in brightness between the comet, and 47 Tuc, as well as the colour.
Nikon D100, at ISO125. A series of 8 exposures each about 2 minutes, using a Nikkor 300mm at f4.5.
Gary
P.S. Ugly as it is, I am looking to see if I can re-stack with Registax and reduce/eliminate the rotation.

[gbeal]

OK, not being happy with the terrible field rotation, I set about re-stacking the separate images. This time I used a different routine to overcome this rotation, and the attached image shows pretty much what the eye saw, well perhaps not the green tinge, but nearly. Same details as before.
I'll give you a day or so to digest both images, then bin the horrible one, lest it makes too many ill.

Better perhaps?
Gary

[[1ponders]]

top stuff Gary :2thumbs: Especially the glob. Any idea what's causing the colour difference (red) around the comet and between the comet and 47 Tuc

[iceman]

That's excellent Gary!

I saw the comet at the SPSP on Friday night (forgot to look on Saturday). It was well placed next to 47Tuc, and I spotted the fuzz in my finder, so finding it in the eyepiece was no problems.

It was very faint, not much coma to be seen but it was definitely recognisable.

Is it going to get brighter?

Gary, send that 2nd shot to the astro mags.. it'll get pritned for sure.

[gbeal]

Hi Paul,
not entirely sure, but I think it is simply trying to tweak as much, possibly too much from the individual images/and the total image. I can make it worse with the levels function (and better).

Ice. May do that, I assumed they (Sky & Space) would have more than enough as it was.

Gary

[iceman]

Gary have you tried masking off the separate areas to process individually? So that you don't overprocess one area trying to bring out the detail in the other..

You should send it off, they may not have any and it would be great to have your shot printed again.