Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Cooper
One thing to mention for the casual viewer. It may seem like the tail had shrunken just after the full moon in January as the comet passed in front of the LMC, but this is wrong. The shorter lengths were probably due to the fact that we didn't expect the tail to still be so long at that stage and photographed accordingly. Once it was realized what we were dealing with, your good-self, Rob & Justin worked on getting the wider shots needed to show this, for which we are ever thankful!
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Interesting point Ian, and it applies before & after January too. Earlier on the fainter end of the tail got lost in the brighter parts of the Milky Way so we don't know its full extent then. Same applied in late Jan - images showed it extending into the Milky Way but not out through to the other side out of it. Now with it being very faint we're only imaging a 'bright' part near the head, at fairly high zooms. But seeing as I got a faint trace for nearly 5 deg (to the edge of my frame) a week or so back with very limited gear then you can bet the tail is still quite long. But it takes so long now to get the necessary exposure times on the 'bright' bit you simply haven't got time to continue imaging narrow fields down the tail.
I should add that in all the recent DSLR shots, the tail appears to end near the edge of the frames - this is a lens/camera vignetting issue, nothing to do with tail continuing or not continuing on. Doesn't matter how you frame the comet it doesn't seem to quite make it to the edge!
Cheers -