Comet Lovejoy in a clear sky 25/12

loomberah (Gordon) · #1 25-12-2011, 10:58 AM

The sky was clear, although at ground level, everything was dripping wet this morning. I noticed ISS coming over as I was walking to the 45cm scope so quickly grabbed a few short exposures on the tripod of ISS and C/2011 W3 together, although the head of the comet had not risen by that stage. ISS slowly faded, but was still visible as it went below the horizon.

Here is one of this morning's photos, a nice dark sky with airglow visible, taken with a Nikon D200, 30mm lens @ f/1.6, 30sec, ISO400. I might add another one here later, but they will all appear at http://astro.gunagulla.com
At some stage I'll stack a few, but thats a bit involved at the moment, due to no suitable software on this laptop.

loomberah (Gordon) · #2 25-12-2011, 11:20 AM

One of the last photos from this morning with a 20mm lens, 30 sec exposure.

Quark (Trevor) · #3 25-12-2011, 11:26 AM

Very nice images Gordon. Certainly worth the effort.

Regards
Trevor

loomberah (Gordon) · #4 25-12-2011, 11:34 AM

Thanks Trevor, I just measured the tail to be 26.5 degrees long on a single 30 sec exposure frame! I reckon it will be a bit longer on my stacked frames... when I get around to stacking them.

Analog6 (Odille) · #5 25-12-2011, 12:17 PM

What time of morning did you take this lovely shot? I was trying ISO400 and could not bring the comet up without a hell of a lot of noise. I was trying from 0310 to 0350, then low cloud came up and overtook it.

renormalised (Carl) · #6 25-12-2011, 01:04 PM

Nice shots Gordon....especially the first

Odille...at 400, you won't get too much of anything showing. It's a little too slow for the amount of light you need to get a good piccie. Can you go faster than that....say 800 at least.

loomberah (Gordon) · #7 25-12-2011, 01:06 PM

These 2 were about 4:05am for the 30mm dark sky, and 4:30 for the 20mm in twilight.