Magellanic Clouds and C/Lovejoy

[loomberah]

I took a few 30mm photos with the Nikon D200 last night before moonrise. 11 in total, but Registax doesnt seem to want to let me stack them all, so here is the stack of 6 * 30sec exposures. I was in and out of the house, and it was bit bright inside due to visitors, so I wasn't fully dark adapted, and could not make it out naked eye in the few brief tries I made.

It's looking like a fair bit of cloud will be aorund over the next week, so that may have been my last go at it.

Larger version at http://astro.gunagulla.com

[tornado33]

Good pic there. It sure shows how faint it now is. Its odd behaiviour for a comet as normally the tail dissapears leaving just the coma when they move away from the Sun, Lovejoy still has a fairly long tail, just that it's surface brightness is very low.
Scott

[loomberah]

Thanks Scott, yours turned out quite well too, not sure I want to spend so long tracking on it myself though ;) I'll try some 85mm photos if I get some clear sky in the next week.
I think the behaviour is fairly typical of comets that disintegrate- just a streak of coma left with no condensation- just that C/Lovejoy lost so much more material in a short time than most comets, so the tail was much larger, but there is nothing left to replenish it now.

[trent_julie]

I really do like the composition, well done!

Trent

[gregbradley]

Nice shot. I have one also from a few days before. Mine also tends to be a bit colourless but then perhaps that is the area.

Greg.

[renormalised]

Great shot:)

Comet's almost petered out now. Won't be long before it's completely gone.

[Mighty_oz]

Nice, i really like the last one with the sun and clouds :)

[Liz]

Fabulous Gordon, great image. :thumbsup:

2 visual sightings of Comet Lovejoy yday ....... maybe some life in it for a bit longer yet. :)

What is happening with the tail of your comet ... looks interesting???

[loomberah]

I'm not sure Liz, I haven't seen any pics of it taken in the past few weeks... do you know of any online?

[Clayton]

Nice shot Gordon :)

[Liz]

I saw one the other am per the comets Yahoo group, Gordon, that Rolano Ligustri had taken. The tails looked looked amazing with one at ....9pm, and other 1pm (not sure how to properly put that).

hope this link works...

https://plus.google.com/photos/107386404051271210368/albums/5452252571099371489/5694912415006240754?banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/107386404051271210368/albums/5452252571099371489/5694912415006240754

Just checked Stellarium and Comet Garradd is presently in Herculus loooow in the east but still too light, maybe another couple of weeks as skies darken, and Herculus climbs a bit higher. : )

[loomberah]

Thanks Liz, those great photos show the yellow dust tail fan, spread out in the plane of the orbit, and the blue ion tail pointing away from the Sun, it's looked similar to that for a little while now, quite pretty. Unfortunately, I wont be seeing it any time soon, as it is heading to the far northern sky and wont reappear here until about the start of April on its way south again.

[Lester]

Well framed view of the comet Gordon, with the two M.C.s