Comet 88P Howell, 18 Sept 09

[Rob_K]

Rare clear night! 88P in Libra, 10:55, 18 Sept 09 UT. Field is a bit over 2 deg wide; Canon 400D, 200mm, 7 x 75 sec. Image is actual-pixel crop from combined Registax stacks, one on comet head and one on stars. Insert is 3x resize.

This comet is apparently around mag low to mid 8s at the moment.

Cheers -

[orestis]

hi Rob,

wow nice capture ,love the Green Glow

good job

orestis

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I was lucky enough to see this visually on both Friday and Saturday night through a 16" dob. Good shot.

Dave

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi Rob,

Nice to hear from from, good job with tracking down 88P Howell. Haven't seen many comet images for some time.

Well done
Regards
Trevor

[Troy]

Nice Rob, great shot

[Inmykombi (Geoff)]

Well done on capturing this comet.
I also like the green glow.

[Rob_K]

Thanks all! By contrast, the other fairly bright comet in our skies at the moment, C/2006 W3 Christensen, shows up in my images as pure white, with a white coma. Must say something about their relative amounts of ionised gas & dust.

Cheers -

[byronpaul (Paul)]

Rob, great shot

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by Rob_K

Thanks all! By contrast, the other fairly bright comet in our skies at the moment, C/2006 W3 Christensen, shows up in my images as pure white, with a white coma. Must say something about their relative amounts of ionised gas & dust.

Cheers -

Christensen was a lot brighter to my eyes and had a tighter nucleus with less coma.

Dave

[Rodstar (Rod)]

I looked at both 88P Howell and Christensen on Saturday night, I agree that Christensen is looking quite a bit brighter, it was in a plainer starfield when I was looking, which may have some effect on such impressions. I could not detect any colour in either object through the Mary Rose (20").

[Rob_K]

Originally Posted by Rodstar

I looked at both 88P Howell and Christensen on Saturday night, I agree that Christensen is looking quite a bit brighter, it was in a plainer starfield when I was looking, which may have some effect on such impressions. I could not detect any colour in either object through the Mary Rose (20").

Yeah, Christensen is the brighter of the two. Here's a shot of C/2006 W3 from last night, illustrating the 'colour' difference (excuse the stars, stacked on comet head).

Cheers -

[Liz]

Originally Posted by Rob_K

Thanks all! By contrast, the other fairly bright comet in our skies at the moment, C/2006 W3 Christensen, shows up in my images as pure white, with a white coma. Must say something about their relative amounts of ionised gas & dust.

Cheers -

Great job again Rob!!
I tried to find Comet Christensen Sat night, but no luck (couldnt even find Uranus and Neptune!!)
May try for 88P .... i get too impatient if I havent found them in 5 minutes or so.
Those pics were taken with your camera and lens ..... is your scope OK????

[Rob_K]

Originally Posted by Liz

Great job again Rob!!
I tried to find Comet Christensen Sat night, but no luck (couldnt even find Uranus and Neptune!!)
May try for 88P .... i get too impatient if I havent found them in 5 minutes or so.
Those pics were taken with your camera and lens ..... is your scope OK????

Thanks Liz! Yep, scope is OK, but my astrophotography is a bit like your visual observing, LOL! If I can't do it in five minutes I don't bother, so have never shot through the scope with my DSLR! Shorter focal lengths are so much more forgiving, and a camera on a mount is so quick 'n easy!

Cheers -