2008-09-28 Comet 6p-d'Arrest (and friend) animation

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

While I purposely went hunting for the comet to do an animation of its movement through the sky, a chance encounter on the morning of the 28th Sept gave me the opportunity to get some perspective on the size of this comet. It passed close by IC5148 (PK2-52.1- also known as The Spare Tyre Nebula). IC5148 is listed in SN as 120 arcsec wide or roughly 3 times the size of Jupiter at it's closest.

Details: 19 images at 5 min each. SBIG ST-7XME & Meade 8"SCT @ f/5. Dark subtracted (auto) but no flats. Images aligned in CCDSoft, converted to TIFFs in IP, curves and levels processing in PS using a recorded action to keep all the processing the same (new trick I learnt . ) Animation created and optimized in Animation Shop 3. There were some RA guiding issues I'm yet to resolve with the self guiding, so the stars are a bit oval shaped, but the end result was worth the effort even with them. Also due to the rapid motion of the comet and guiding on stars the nucleus of the comet is also slightly elongated over the 5 minute period of each exposure.

One thing I did notice after watching the animation is that there is a definite ion trail to the lower left side of the comet reaching almost all the way to the edge of the frame.

6P-d'Arrest Animation. Warning 2.2mb

The image below is just a single frame for those who don't want to open the full 2.2mb

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow Paul, that's fantastic! You guys are doing some excellent work with these solar system bodies and animations etc.

Very well done.

[Dennis]

Hi Paul

Wow – that is a fantastic animation! The comets’ “shock front” and dust tail look quite eerie as the animation progresses. I just love the Spare Tyre Nebula nearby – wonderful composition!

Lots of cosmic ray hits or hot pixels?

Cheers

Dennis

[Garyh]

Now that`s a really nice one Paul! great animation!
cheers Gary

[iceman (Mike)]

I hope to see this on SpaceWeather soon, Paul! I hope you've submitted it!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks guys.

Cosmic ray strikes Dennis, though I imagine that there were a few noisy pixels in there as I only used a single dark from. I have to remember to get CCDSoft to take a new dark every few frames, or use do the dark subtraction later with a master dark.

What I'd really like to know how to do is to combine all the images into one master "field" image without the comet showing (tried median combine and that wasn't too successful) and then mask the comet position in in PS for each positional shot. That way I'd end up with a nice clean back ground, like your asteroid beside M104 animation, instead of the noisy ones I'm using.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I hadn't even thought about it Mike. I'm usually just happy posting them here.

[h0ughy (David)]

well done Mr Ponders - will be awesome when that building is finished

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Yeah then I can sleep in comfort h0ughy. I fell asleep and slumped forward about half way through the shots and woke up an hour later feeling like.....the proverbial.. with a severe chill across my neck and shoulders. It wasn't pleasant.......but the end results were worth it.

[peeb61 (Paul)]

Nice one Paul, we can all see the comet is starting to draw interest!
It is at a reasonable height so there's still time yet for more images.

Paul

[AlexN]

A few of us at Barambah were taking a gander at that and hoping someone would capture an image or two..

Well done mate.

[astroron (Ron)]

Brilliant Paul I was looking at this at Barambah and hoping like hell that someone would take an image of ityou have done it in spades, thanks a lot
Ron

[Ric]

Excellent animation Paul, it looks fantastic passing by the planetary.

Top stuff

[Rob_K]

Wow, superb job Paul, congrats!!!! Very smooth and the animation brings the ion tail out well!

Cheers -