Collage of past comets

[cometcatcher]

It's raining and I'm bored so thought I'd put together a couple of collages of past comets.

This one from comet T7 Linear during April/May 2004. A beautiful morning comet with long slender tail. A beautiful sight visually as well. Not so spectacular when it swung around into the evening sky though.

From the Mintron video camera again. Most using a 135mm lens were taken with a barn door and fingers turning a screw for tracking!

Line1 frame1 April 19 2004 135mm f2.5 lens. Frame2 April 21 135mm f2.5 lens. Frame3 April 22 135mm f2.5 lens.

Line2 frame1 April 29 50mm lens. Frame2 April 29 135mm lens. Frame3 April 27 135mm lens.

Line3 frame1 May 11 200mm lens. Frame2 May 13 4inch f6 refractor. Frame3 May 14 135mm lens just above the trees before dawn.

And finally a single colour shot on Fuji 800 with a 400mm f4.5 lens showing the long wavy tail.

A comet to remember for sure.

[Vermin]

Excellent!

[davidpretorius]

great collection

[janoskiss]

They look unreal! Thanks for sharing! :)

[fringe_dweller]

excellent presentation and captures, yep one sweet blue comet -

dunno about the swing into the evenings being all that bad (i know what you mean tho) - myself and some friends wished we had realised that the tail blew out to 43º sub visually/photographically on the 19th may - as captured by John Drummond in NZ http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/comets-c-2001t7(linear)-43degree-tail.htm and others?
as then 2002 T7 was at closest approach to earth and the tail geometry/orientation had it pointing kinda towards earth, making it easier to pick up the more fainter tail, see my pic from SN

[cometcatcher]

Wow, I didn't know the tail got to 43 degrees on the 19th. Looks good in the NZ photo. I don't have a pic at that date. The nearest I have is May 22 and the tail seems to chug out even in a 135mm lens photo. (see attached)

[cometcatcher]

2004 was a great year for comets. I observed more bright comets that year than any other. Not too far away from T7 Linear was Q4 Neat. What's the chances of two naked eye comets at the same time? Very difficult tail visually with this comet though.

Line1 frame1 April 10 4" refractor. Frame2 April 21 4" refractor. Frame3 May 9 200mm lens I think.

Line2 frame1 May10 135mm f2.5 lens. Frame2 a close up with a 6 inch f6 Newtonian. Frame3 May 11 200mm lens.

Line3 frame1 May16 135mm lens. Frame2 May 17 135mm lens. Frame 3 May 16 50mm lens with the Beehive cluster.

And a full frame colour pic on Fuji 800 with a 4 inch f6 refractor.

[Robert_T]

what a beautiful collage - the fine tail structure on some of the T7 Linear shots are very impressive :thumbsup:

[fringe_dweller]

Kevin, here's some more shots of freaky long tail on T7 from those dates http://www.astroarts.co.jp/special/comet2003/gallery/linear13-j.html
enjoy :)

[cometcatcher]

Thanks for that. It's always a difficult decision which lens to choose when photographing comets. Time is always a problem with low comets too so there's usually only time for one shot.

[cometcatcher]

Q2 Machholz from late 2004 early 2005 was a difficult one to get a nice tail from with my equipment. Yet I've seen some amazing shots with Sbig cameras and even DSLR's. The image of Q2 with the tail going through the Pleiades was amazing. It was cloudy here at that time but my equipment wasn't really up to the task anyway. Maybe if I spent a bit more time with greyscale rather than my early tricolour experiments I coul have squeezed more detail out of it. Or maybe not.

Line1 frame1 Nov 2004 6 inch f5. Frame2 Nov 11 6" f5. Frame3 Nov 29 200mm f3.5.

Line2 frame1 Jan 3 2005 50mm lens tricolour. Frame2 Jan 4 135mm lens. Frame3 Jan 4 50mm lens.

Line3 frame1 Jan 5 50mm near Pleiades. Frame2 Jan 11 135mm lens. Frame3 Jan 11 50mm lens.

[cometcatcher]

Comet H6 Swan was a cute little winter comet of 2004. About mag 7-8 from memory. I even dragged out a 10 inch f4.5 but by then it was quite faint and registax was having trouble locking onto it.

Line1 frame1 June 3 2004 6" f5 newtonian. Frame2 June 9 6" f5. Frame3 June 10 6" f5.

Line2 frame1 June 11. Frame 2 June 13. Frame3 June 19 10 inch f4.5 newtonian.

[fringe_dweller]

we had seen those two naked eye comets simultaneously when q4 was still circumpolar and t7 was in morning sky in april several times before the evening show (from dark skies).
We drove nearly to Broken Hill/NSW up barrier highway to escape clouds to see the evening show on the 20th/21st may, drove too long and couldnt set up for photography first night - had to settle for multiple binocs and NE views, which were a pretty good consolation :) that was the best we had seen q4 that night, as it was totally cloudy the next night - 800 klm round trip.
these werent the only pair of (sometimes barely) ne comets for some lucky earth viewers that year - there was also the strange co-incidence of the northerners having a surprise ne pair in the surprise Comet Bradfield and t7 around the same time as us http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040503.html that was very, very strange!
then myself and a mate saw 2003 K4 LINEAR and 2004 Q2 Machholz on morning 16th dec both ne simultaneously from a dark sky site .
Machholz was pretty good too - funny how about the earliest prediscovery image of machholz found was when it was near/in tail of t7 from the morning 15 may in widefield shots - unfortunately our darksky film shot didnt go deep enough to catch the diffuse 14th mag beastie that time even tho its position is in shot, but maybe could of if there wasnt a stuff up with the kendricks and we could of imaged it higher up :P

[cometcatcher]

I'm still annoyed over the cloud that caused me to miss Bradfield. I know it was low but there should have been a chance for a couple of days and those days were clouded out in that direction. The tail looked awesome in the shots I saw from the northern hemisphere.

I have a few shots of K4 Linear. Er, here's one showing antitail on Nov 5 2004.

My NE ability with comets isn't very good. Generally I can't spot them until they reach around mag 5.

And I must get some giant binos too. My 20 year old 7x50's I bought for Halley don't magnify enough.

[RAJAH235]

Extremely nice pics, Kevin. Haven't been able to see 'Pojmanski' yet, due to this damn weather. Prob too late now anyway. Thanks for letting us all 'see' it.
:D L.

[fringe_dweller]

You would of had to be a member of the secret inner circle of aussie comet observers to have seen Bradfield 2004 F4 half decently I would think? (i am certainly not! lol ) but it was a quickie - I like those sort :)
I think? it was around two weeks between discovery and public anouncement of discovery/confirmation/orbit ect, by then it was virtually lost to us in conjunction, then headed north.

saw K4 at a darksite couple of times in nov 2004. Best view was also nearly my first trip out with new at the time 25x100's in good conditions and as it was a horizon job, was easy to use with the tripod, and we found out what we had been missing out on in very large bino's.
Looked awesome even at around 7th mag. i nearly fell over, I called it a delta winged beauty at the time :p , due to antitail. We were out for the leonids and machholz as well at the time, morning 20th.

[iceman]

Awesome compilations!

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Mike. If I go back any further I'm going to have to start scanning film, although I have some nice shots of Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp.

Kearn, nah I'm not in the secret sect either. ;) Although I used to get Perihelion with special bulletins. Kind of obsolete now with internet. But I used to like reading David Seargent's little write ups all the same. Always used to love the arrival of perihelion in the mail. :)

[fringe_dweller]

loved perihilion too mate, David's descriptions of comets were/are like poetry/art to me

[cometcatcher]

I only found out about perhelion around 1990 so I missed a few comets.

These are my first 9, Halley was the first comet I ever saw. I now have 27 and counting.

[CometGuy]

Kevin,

I really enjoyed your photos, brought back some memories. Some of those comets I have never seen a photo of.

Kearn,

You brought up an interesting point about 2004 F4 being known by only a select few at the start. The only reason I knew about it was from pure chance. I got a call from Colin Drescher who was at the NACAA in Hobart at the time and the comet people were talking about a possible comet Bill Bradfield that had not been confirm. The conversation went something like this (I can't remember the actual words):

Colin : Hi, Terry. You've no doubt heard the news that Bill Bradfield may have discovered a comet in the evening sky?
Me : No!
Colin : Well it hasn't been confirmed, but if you want to have a go then these were the positions that Bill and Rob McNaught have given. But its moving into the twilight so good luck

That night I climbed up onto the top of my Pegola with a tripod and newly acquired 300D + telephoto lens. Made some stacked images then to my suprise got an image of the comet! I could not see anything in 15 x 80 binoculars. Luckily we had 3 consecutive clear nights - which is very rare in februrary here - and I secured enough images so that the comet's orbit could be computed and the comet was announced as C/2004 F4. The image from the second night is here:

http://www.pbase.com/terrylovejoy/image/34367904

Terry

[fringe_dweller]

Hi Terry,
maybe 'secret inner circle of aussie comet observers' is a bit strong/silly and has conspiratal undertones, when just the 'lucky 'in the know' ' would of sufficed :)
I remember your images, and the excitement of the times very clearly, I was blown away by these new fangled canon digital slr's and what they could do (in the right hands) :-)))

[astroboy]

Good one
A wanted poster for the vagabonds of space:thumbsup:

Zane