Comet C/2010X1 (Elenin)

[CometGuy]

Before the cloud moved into tonight managed to get 11 x 30 second exposures of Elenin with an 8" f2.1 scope + QHY9 camera. The attached image is a crop showing over a degree of tail.

Visual observations at the moment are indicating the comet is around magnitude 8 (however, the light pollution prevents me from observing the comet)

Terry

[jjjnettie]

She's a little sweetie isn't she. :D Look how fine that tail is.
Lovely shot Terry.

[h0ughy]

great shot - even that satellite looks good

[bkm2304]

Cropped and still a degree of tail!!! That's what happens when you have an F2.1 scope I suppose. Great shot, Terry.

Richard

[RB]

Nice shot Terry.

:thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

Terry is that with the hyperstar?

[CometGuy]

Yes thats the Hyperstar Dave. btw the total field of view is 2.5 x 1.8 degrees with the QHY9 so makes a great comet imager. However, might be getting out the wider angle lenses for this comet soon as the tail grows.

Terry

[DavidU]

Nicely done Terry.

[Leonid Elenin]

Hello dear observers!

Thanks a lot for your observations and images!

Great photos, now we can see the tail, I think this comet can be very photogenic :)

Dear Terry, can I use your oustanding photo on my blog?


TIA,
Leonid

[CometGuy]

Sure Leonid, and a warm welcome to iceinspace :)

Terry

[Leonid Elenin]

Thank you Terry!

Great forum and site!

[bkm2304]

Welcome to Ice In Space, Leonid. Hope you enjoy the many sights of the southern sky!

Richard:welcome:

[Lester]

Very nice image Terry. Good to see a comet with tail again.

[anthony.tony]

Nice shot-Great tail.

[Ross G]

Great photo Terry.

Amazing long tail.

Thanks.

Ross.

[Paul Haese]

Nice image. Like the long elegant tail. Very nice.

[cookie8]

Nice bright nucleus and pencil fine tail. Top catch!

[El Paso Eric]

Great catch, Terry. I've never shot any comets and was recently reading how to process the fast moving comet images. I'll have to give it a try, as soon as the weather clears around here.

Thanks for sharing

[Leonid Elenin]

Thanks Richard!

[gregbradley]

That looks fabulous.

I imagine I would take 2 lots of images. One short for the stars and autoguided, the other longer of the comet and I guess you'd have to autoguide on the comet itself as the guide star if you could in order for it not to blur. Or take as long an image you could of the comet before it moves too much and take lots of them and stack them.
Then in Photoshop you would delete all the stars in the comet long exposure and then add the stars image as a layer in lighten mode the stars would shine through. You probably would have to delete the blurred comet out of the stars image with the clone tool and clean any leftovers with the healing tool.

That would work.

Greg.

[John Hothersall]

Great image and fantastic tail, someone said to me comet Elenin was a brown dwarf star about to destroy Earth kept quiet of course by NASA and all amature astronomers, I had to brake it to them gently. Internet is full of rubbish.

[Leonid Elenin]

Dear Australian observers, Michael Mattiazzo wrote what comet may fading, new visual estimates and images VERY necessary.

TIA

[dperry]

also has anyone ever spotted this dark star trailing this comet?

[Allan_L]

Presumably the white stripes down from the top right hand edge of the image.

[Liz]

Ooh, very nice indeed Terry!!

[sydneystargazer]

There is no dark star trailing behind the comet.

[jjjnettie]

There is no dark star trailing this comet.

[SkyViking]

Wow that's a beautiful tail, very nice!

[Leonid Elenin]

August 19, STEREO-B spacecraft has catched a very interesting event – the interaction of the gas coma of comet Elenin and coronal mass ejections from the Sun.

Video and details on http://spaceobs.org/en/2011/08/24/interaction-between-comet-elenin-and-coronal-mass-ejection-from-the-sun/

[jjjnettie]

very cool, thanks for the link.

[Leonid Elenin]

You're welcome.

[Liz]

Wow, from the MAN himself, congratulations on this comet leonid!!! It is quite the conversation piece. ;)

[Leonid Elenin]

Thanks!

[CometGuy]

Unfortunately it really does look like the comet is starting to run out of steam. Latest image shows the ion tail has gone, and the central condensation is becoming diffuse and elongated.

This image is a small crop from a 3 x 22 second stack from August 25.

[iceman]

Some interesting videos on the discoverers own website:
http://spaceobs.org/en/
about the comet potentially breaking up after being hit by a CME.

Hi Leonid Elenin, :welcome: to IceInSpace.

Some more here on Universe Today about it:
http://www.universetoday.com/88494/comet-elenin-could-be-disintigrating/


Another nice image Terry!

[Leonid Elenin]

Thank you Mike.

[CometGuy]

Just a quick image from tonight. Only 2 x 15 seconds (from my comet survey images) so excuse the graininess.

Terry