Another Comet C/2012 K5 LINEAR

[peeb61 (Paul)]

Spurned on by Astroman (Andrew) and others on this forum, I thought I'd have a go at imaging this fast moving comet.

This was taken last night (Jan 7).

This is a single exposure at 1 minute using my QHY8L at primefocus with my SW 190mm Mak-Newt.

I did take lots more and watching them download was like watching a time lapse movie. (I suppose it was really.)

Paul

[StephenM (Stephen)]

Nice image Paul! I just went outside to have a look for this one, and there's so much smoke in the air that I can barely see the Pleiades...

Cheers,
Stephen

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Good stuff, Paul!

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Nice image Paul, thanks for sharing. It certainly is moving at a rate of knots and difficult to get a long exposure on it unless you are tracking on the comet, not the stars.

[peeb61 (Paul)]

Thanks Stephen and Laurie,
Andrew, this comet is moving at a rapid rate, I have attached the first image I took on this night, sky was not quite dark but hey I was trying to locate it a judge my exposures.

This is a barmy' 5 minutes and looking at the trail you can see how far the comet has moved in this time.

Paul

[Shark Bait (Stu)]

Thanks for posting your photos Paul. It's helpful to compare what I observed with a shot that is a realistic representation of this comet. Last night I went to a dark site to track down the bright comets on offer at the moment. I found this one under dark skies without too much difficulty early this morning.

For the visual observer under a dark sky the tail is easy to see.

Edit: I have managed to extract some data from my very basic astro imaging setup and I think this comet is approximately magnitude 11.00 at the moment.

[peeb61 (Paul)]

Stu,
it's a pleasure posting, I am glad you have found it helpful.

Paul