Comet Lovejoy 23-12-11

[Lester]

Hi all, Did an alnighter so bit dopey now. Wanted to get the comet at the earliest possible time; but was hindered by cloud just in the comet's position. Thankfully it broke up before the sky lightened too much. This is a 3 minute exposure with 50mm lens at F3.2. The image is not cropped. I estimate the tail to be 20 degrees, although if someone knows the FOV of a 50mm lens on a Canon 20Da camera we may be able to measure it more accurately.

http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu109/Lester_045/Comet%20images/1d5bf314.jpg

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Hi, Lester.

Awsome image!

Looks great aginst the cloud.

Cheers,
Justin.

[swannies1983]

Smashing :jawdrop:
I found a nice spot near McLaren Vale only to find cloud starting to roll in right where Lovejoy was. It was clear all night and satellite shows it wouldn't be around for long :(. Oh well, next time.

[ngcles]

Hi Lester,

I saw it this morning for the first time (just a 5-10 minute glimpse at 3.20am) and it lives up to all the hype. Superb, rivals C/2006 P1 McNaught -- and that's saying something. Clouds came from everywhere as I was setting the camera up.

Wonderful image Lester!

Re length of the tail, from your image I'd say 17-18 degrees.

After using Megastar and doing a more careful measure , I'd say a whisker under 15 degrees.


Best,

Les D

[Virgs]

Very nice

[jjjnettie]

Spectacular!!
Thanks for the camera info too.

[Lester]

Thanks Justin, Dan, Les, Virgs and Jjj for your comments.

Thanks for the calculation Les of the tail length, although I thought is would be longer than that. I could follow the tail for 3 FOVs in 7x50 binoculars.

All the best.

[shelltree]

Holy moly Lester, this is just beautiful! Makes me even more excited about trying to see Lovejoy tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed it isn't clouded out like this morning was :sadeyes:

[swannies1983]

What type of lens do you have?

[SkyViking]

Incredible! One of the best images so far.

[Liz]

Fabulous Lester, lucky bugger. Tail looks magnificent.
Alas, no luck for me today.

[jeff@sa]

Top shot Lester!
Cheers,
Jeff

[Shiraz]

just beautiful Lester - work of art. Regards Ray

[strongmanmike]

Agree with Rolf, the best I've seen - wow!

Mike

[Lester]

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them all.

The lens is a Canon 50mm F1.4 that I stop down to F3.2, it is not the "L" series lens.

All the best.

[iceman]

Beautiful Lester. Would love to have seen a bit of the foreground but it's a beautiful comet!

[Lester]

Thanks Mike. After yesterdays shots I chose to keep the foreground out of the FOV, as the mount tracks and the foreground becomes blured. This exposure was much longer than yesterdays so the foreground would have deteriated.

All the best.

[iceman]

Ah, didn't know you were tracking. That explains it.

[iceman]

If I could be bothered dragging my EQ6 out to the Coast, I'd take one exposure with tracking on, and one with tracking off, and combine them.

[Clayton]

Amazing shot Lester :eyepop::thumbsup:

[Lester]

I am not that cleaver Mike.

Thanks Rob.

All the best.

[Lester]

Added some more contrast with curves to this image, hope it is still okay.

http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu109/Lester_045/Comet%20images/baa96fa7.jpg

[iceman]

Wow!!!!

How long was the exposure? Single or stacked?

[kinetic]

Incredible image Lester.
Wow!

Steve

[rogerg]

Spectacular shot :)

[Lester]

Thanks for your comments. It is only 1 exposure of 1 minutes. I tried to stack all 11 exposures from this morning, but it is not as sharp as this image. The cloud moving around doesn't add to a stacked image IMO.

All the best.

[Paul Haese]

Lester we hoped you got something. We got clouded out this morning, saw the comet for a moment and got a frame but nothing in the order of this. Fantastic work, especially the last image. Certain the best image I have seen so far. Send that to APOD it is bound to get up.

[Lester]

Thanks for your comments Paul. Hope you get clear skies soon for another shot. All the best.

[michaellxv]

Simply stunning Lester.

I got up this morning and had good view before the clouds came in.

Anyone know how long this will visible?

[Lester]

Thanks Michael for your comments. I don't know how long it is supposed to be visible for, from my experience they can be unpredictable. I will have a search and see what I find.

Here is a link to comets including Terry's comet. There may be better links around.
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/

[mswhin63]

Brilliant shot :thumbsup:, was out this morning to but the clouds spoiled the view :sad:

[dpastern]

Whoah that's a SUPER shot - awesomeness!

Is this comet visible from Brissie (I presume so). Might be worth starting the car up and driving a bit out of town with the tripod and cameras. What would be the best exposure (tripod, no mount)?

Dave

[Octane]

Lester,

Without doubt, the most beautiful comet image I've seen.

I prefer the first image with less contrast.

Congratulations, mate.

H

[Quark]

Superb work Lester, love it.

Cheers
Trevor

[Lester]

Thanks Malcolm, Dave, Humayun and Trevor for your comments.

Dave, yes it would be visible from Brisbane, so long as you don't have too much light pollution to the south east with a clear horizon. Exposure will depend on camera and lens used. If you can get an image with 10-20 seconds using a lens of about 50mm, that will not trail the image too much. If your camera doesn't produce too much noise try mid to high ISO settings.

All the best.

[gregbradley]

That's an amazing image. I had no idea such a major comet was visible at the moment.

Greg.

[Lester]

Thanks Greg, I hope you get to see it. All the best.

[tornado33]

Yep best image I've seen of it. Can even see distinct yellow colour, and striations in the tail.
Scott

[Lester]

Thanks Scott for your comments. Striations = new word for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striation

All the best.

[swannies1983]

Yep, I'm the same. Would love to take the EQ6 out but hard enough waking up at 3 and then driving to my spot, let alone having to set up and polar aligning my mount.

I've already commented but I can't stop coming back to these pics. Fantastic.

[Rigel003]

Beautiful, Lester! Best I've seen. I drove an hour to the south coast in the early hours, only to find the sky almost completely clouded out.

[Lester]

Thanks Dan and Graeme for your comments. I have been fortunate to have relatively clear skies, tonight doesn't look too promising, but 3 a.m is still a long way off.

Bad luck on the cloud Graeme, would north be a better direction than south to get less cloud? My thinking would be the northern direction would yeild a much lower annual rainfall than south, so perhaps less cloud. I use to have an uncle that farmed near Snowtown and he copped some nasty droughts.

[dpastern]

Thanks Lester. Will be using a 60D (pretty good high ISO), remote, tripod and 50mm (I have both the f1.8 and f1.4 variants of this lens, will prolly use the 1.4). How does f2.8, 20 secs, ISO 800 sound? I'd love to capture some of the tail tendrils, but I suspect my exposure would have to be too long to really do this without tracking :/

Dave

[Lester]

Hi Dave, use the F1.4 lens, and you could get away with ISO 1600, I use that on my 40D and it handles it well. I would even try the lens wide open to limit your exposure length and minimise trailing. You could always crop off the edges of the image in processing if the stars look like seagulls. My image was 1 minute exposure at F3.2 and ISO 800 with the 20Da, so the equivalant exposure at ISO 1600 and F1.4 would be, just under 6 seconds. Try that and check the results on the screen on the camera. If you want crisper stars in the edges try F2 and 12 seconds exposure.

I will be keen to hear your results. All the best.

[dpastern]

Well, now I need clear skies. It seems that Brisbane won't have clear skies until Monday at least :(

Dave

[firstlight]

Spectacular... I agree with Humayun, the first looks better. Sooo much rain and cloud around here in Brisbane.

[michael_sa]

Stunning shot Lester. Well done.
I'm hoping to catch a glimpse in the morning so long as the cloud stays away.

Michael

[Lester]

Thanks Tony and Michael for your comments. Hope you and Dave can get a good view of this chap soon.

All the best.

[John Hothersall]

Just Brilliant!!!

John.

[midnight]

Lost for words Lester. Apod grade.

Brilliant.

Darrin...

[kinetic]

Congrats Lester, the shot is now on Spaceweather.com!

Steve

[Lester]

Thanks John, Darrin and Steve for your comments.

All the best.

I had to upgrade from the free version of photobucket this morning to photobucket Pro. The image had over 1,000 viewings yesterday which closed down the image. All working now okay.