Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) and NGC362

[cometcatcher]

Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) from last night just before it passes over NGC362. 2014 0828 1100 - 1400UT, ED100 F9, Pentax K-5.

Astrobin. http://astrob.in/116762/0/

[rustigsmed]

nice work Kevin especially getting the green tinge!

Rusty

[Draco]

Awesome shot Kevin. What was the exposure time and ISO? Thanks mate

BTW is it possible to see the green tail visually or is this only with camera?

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Rusty.

Niv, 151 x 1 minute subs at ISO1600. The bigger the scope the better the chance of detecting a tail. None seen in my 4 inch refractor but people have seen it in larger scopes.

[MrB]

Another great shot Kevin, how is it you get consistent cloud free nights?! :mad2:

[cometcatcher]

Believe me Simon it isn't normal. Though Winter / Spring in northern Australia typically has less cloud than Summer, which is usually a total write off.

[Octane]

Fantastic!

How did you stack 151 images and show no movement? Or, is it comet stacking mode?

H

[Derek Klepp]

Great pic Kevin I saw it this morning but it was so windy I just took a snapshot with the Gstar .

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Derek!



H, The comet moved quite a bit in the 3 hours over the exposure, so two methods of stacking were used, comet stacking for one, star stacking for the other. The two stacks are then combined in photoshop. DSS does similar in comet+star stacking but makes a mess of it.

This PDF goes through the steps on how to do it. http://www.astrophoton.com/tips/comet_images.pdf

[Octane]

Cool, cheers. :)

H

[jjjnettie]

:) thanks for the link. I'll give it a go with the 160 images I took last night. :)

[cometcatcher]

Looking forward to the image JJJ.

The main difficulty in combining the two stacks is residual streaking left over from star trails in the star stack. A median combine in stacking helps reduce them. In Photoshop, instead of "normal", use Lighter colour" in the layer combine. Any streaks left over are touched up by hand. To do it seamlessly can take some time and gives me a headache lol.

[cometcatcher]

Trailed version from a maximum stack.

[geolindon]

go Kevin! that's very cool, and i see the blues and yellows in the glob. good luck for tonight with Tuc47 . . . . there's cloud about :-/

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Lindon. We're right on the edge of a cloud stream. Looks like it's moving away from the coast now though. Fingers crossed!

[astronobob]

Ripper imaging & processing Kevin :thumbsup:
I was just running some Co-ords and found it meeting the Pleiades in Oct :thumbsup:
Should be as interesting a capture, I actually have a request to do the Pleiades this season, would be a nice addition to the composition.

[cometcatcher]

Something is not quite right there Bob. 2013 A1 has an encounter with Mars on October 19 but never comes close to the Pleiades.

[astronobob]

mmmm, well thats kinda strange ? Ok, thanks for your feedback Kevin, I was pretty confident the Orbital elements went in stellarium ok, so, not sure what gives there ? I run it again some time soon :thumbsup:
All the best ...

[cometcatcher]

Have you updated the orbital parameters recently? MPC update them fairly often.

[astronobob]

Only added this comet the 2 days a go ? Not sure if orbital elements & orbital parameters are same thing tho, Im assuming so ?

[cometcatcher]

Has me tricked. Must be something in the settings.