Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I'm off to Ron's tonight so I'll try a few more shots (that was only a single shot) in a nice dark sky.

[fringe_dweller]

after a bit of googling I did find some other fine examples of wide field dslr shots showing the brighter two fragments

http://www.astroarts.co.jp/gallery/c...llery9-j.shtml
http://www.astroarts.co.jp/gallery/c.../index-j.shtml

Makes you appreciate our dark skies a bit more! Still like Paul's the best tho

[fringe_dweller]

Have made some screen shots from snp that covers tonight/am and may 1,2,3 and the 14th, times dates are written on them - just for those who may not have the other fragments in their planetariums or maps.

[fringe_dweller]

and the last two

[fringe_dweller]

I am starting to see reports and images that suggest fragment B is in outburst and of a similar brightness to fragment C - both in the low 7's in magnitude, and B with a bigger coma?!! aaarrrgggggggg clouds

Good Luck to all intrepid imagers - you may have some results tonight

[dennislowe]

I am at Carindale and my nothern aspect looks over the gateway bridge. You have to see yhe skyglow to believe it.
However I have just found the comet, the seeing is poor and my limiting mag must be about 9 or 10 with the eyepiece I am using, but there it is. A fuzzy with a brighter nucleous.
Dennis

[fringe_dweller]

Wow Must be fairly nice in dark skies then eh Dennis! (that lucky 1ponders and his crew gggrrrr lol), glad you caught the little bugger anyway and good hunting in what sounds like tough conditions visually. :-))))

[fringe_dweller]

actually take a look at the 7 day forecast for adelaide from BOM website

'Forecast for Saturday evening
Cloudy with a shower or two. Cool with light to moderate south to southwest
winds.

Precis Shower or two.

Forecast for Sunday
Cloudy with a few showers. Cool with moderate south to southwest winds.

Monday Shower or two. Min 12 Max 18
Tuesday Shower or two. Min 12 Max 17
Wednesday A few showers. Min 12 Max 17
Thursday Shower or two. Min 13 Max 19
Friday A few showers. Min 12 Max 19
Saturday Shower or two. Min 11 Max 18'

their coming to take me away HAHA HEHE

[dennislowe]

Yes I enjoy a night out with a dark sky. I often go to a spot about 1h:30m drive away out near Esk. I think I will head out that way tomorrow and have adecent look at the C fragment and also check out the B bit if I can find it.

[h0ughy (David)]

lots of cloud and moisture in the atmosphere, then the fog rolled in. heaps of skyglow and smoke from wood fires. so i just set the Pentax *istDS on the mount and hoped I got the polar alignment ok by eye, these are at 50mm ona sigma 50-500 zoom lens at f4 iso 1600. better than nothing. I will process them later, unfortunatelly IP only handles raw from canon not Pentax so had to shoot in jpeg.

good squinting gentlemen.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

well done david,can just make out the comet in the last image there, didnt look at the other two, but I am sure it's there too

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

It was well visible last night at Ron's (C). Good views were through the trusty 10X50 pentax binocs. Easily stretched 1/3 to 1/2 the field of view. Clearly visible but looked better with averted vision. Best view was through the ED80 with a 16mm T2 nagler. Stretched across the full field of view. Very easily seen. Unfortunately no shots. I was waiting for the comet to get 20 or so deg above the northern horizon but by the time the comet was high enough for some really good shots high cloud moved in.

[fringe_dweller]

Nice one h0ughy - can see comet SW3 B easy in the third one - and I can see comet SW3 C very easy in all of them, and I am sure B is in the others too, thanks for sharing them dude

Great report Paul! glad you all got some nice views - cheers

EDIT: just saw this on another forum - i think its pretty cool
http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos...heic0605b.html

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

Nice one h0ughy - can see comet SW3 B easy in the third one - and I can see comet SW3 C very easy in all of them, and I am sure B is in the others too, thanks for sharing them dude

Great report Paul! glad you all got some nice views - cheers

EDIT: just saw this on another forum - i think its pretty cool
http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos...heic0605b.html

Thanks, I can send you the fullfile if you like, mark out what you think is the other comets pieces!

i am downloading the broacast quality one, excellent and amazing footage

[middy]

Originally Posted by fringe_dweller

]Hi middy - pretty image of Corona Borealis - beautiful
heres my snp screen shot of the time you imaged - you indeed have the right spot - not sure if my orbital elements are exactly correct (may be out by 4 arc seconds or so) due to snp harvards single OE available (and its for the original SW3 before breakup LOL) I had to modify some of the ones available on the net - PITA! - had to do my own julian dates for perihelion, so not sure if thats the problem - anyway should be close enough.
There does seem to be a similar streak in the tree's near it - so cant say for sure anychance of stacking more for a deeper shot? i did stretch the hell out of it PS and there seems to be something there?
PS have included the obit path (blue line) for that moment in time - interesting to look at the other fragments on it - some slightly off the path
PS EDIT: middy, re comet from 90's sure your not thinking of Hale Bopp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale-Bopp

There was a tree in the way for any images earlier than those. I have a very narrow window of opportunity between two trees. If I get a chance again I might try some 48sec @ ISO400 exposures instead of 32sec @ ISO200.

As for the 90's comet, I just found the photo I took and it would have been around late 1997 so that would make it Hale-Bopp.

[h0ughy (David)]

I got too keen last night, cant see the forest for the trees.

edit: i should add these are 4 shots stacked in IP. sorry for the quality. pentax raws are not able to be processed in Ip for some reason so they were Jpegs to start with. I might have to get a 350D ;-)

[fringe_dweller]

Caught fragment C a couple of times through momentary sucker holes, with the 20x80's handheld in backyard this morning am - still looking good! was looking thru thin clouds at times and still looked nice, about .25º bright tail, star-like pseudo-nucleus nice and bright in a typical type fuzzball of at least 10' in size. I think i saw fragment B as well, smaller but there, was over in seconds tho due to clouds.
Nice to check M13 while in area too still a very nice glob.
Houghy, I am on mac I am sure you can do a better job on your PC, I dont have the proggies you have. plus my ozelame email only allows 10meg storage/transfer - thanks for the offer, did do a kind of effort on the 3rd jpg but the 'bits' are much more visible in your original lol
Re 350d, thought you had a modded 300D!??
the large version of vid is awesome eh - that will go down in history as one of the great hubble shots i would hazard a guess? maybe more to come? - i want to see a shot of the main fragment C with hubble - wow! wonder if they are holding out?
The scorpian has a nice sting to it too Dave!!! some well gathered photons

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

That is an excellent movie of the comet breakup !
I was hoping to see it last night, but the clouds won before hercules could rise.

[fringe_dweller]

Hi Ian, hope you get some clear skies soon, you've had a bad trot with the weather lately mate (thats what they call an understatement I believe?)
Anyway interesting to compare this ground shot (courtesy the pope) with the hubble shot
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~chergen/73P.html

[h0ughy (David)]

cool link Fringy! just to think nasa send in the comet smasher a few months back costing millions and now they get one for free in their own backyard virtually!