Help in identifying a (new?) comet in Sagittarius…

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Bad luck Dennis. But a nice capture just the same.
I might have a go at it myself tonight.

[Kal (Andrew)]

For an optical artefacty that sure does appear like a comet, the colour is almost perfect!

[Jen]

looks cool in the animation shots

[AlexN]

my 70-200 suffers from flaring when pointed just off centre of the moon. Haven't tried it on jupiter though..

[5ash (Philip)]

Heres a picture i took monday night using a g star on an lx90 .The first pic of M22 gives an idea of the field of view , the comet is dead centre in the second pic
regards philip

[astroron (Ron)]

Dennis what concerned me but I didn't think to mention was the size of the object (comet) in your image Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin is only very small and the object in your image was quite large
I also noted the flaring but thought you had taken that into account
I hope you can take an image of the True (Comet) tonight
Ron

[Dennis]

Dear colleagues

It is with deep regret that I announce the passing, into oblivion, of last night’s “comet discovery” in Sagittarius. Sadly, it was eventually proven that the “comet” was nothing more than the result of internal reflections in the Canon 400m F5.6 – a cosmic imposter initially rendered plausible by the realism inherent in the fuzziness and colours of the lens flare.

Here is a 2 Layer composite showing the (faint) position at 6:14pm in Frame 1 (10 secs) superimposed on Frame 2 (30 secs) taken at 8:15pm, clearly revealing the duplicitous nature of this non-cosmic interloper.

Lessons learned:

• This was 1st (astronomy) light for the Canon 400mm F5.6 under these conditions.
• When using a new optical system for the 1st time be on the look out for any optical or system artefacts, as you do not yet know how the system will behave under various lighting conditions.
• If its too good to be true, it probably is!
• If you find something similar, rotate the sensor 90 degrees or change the field slightly and take further exposures to see if the object moves.

Thank you Ron and Ric for your assistance in helping establish the true identity of this cosmic thief!

Cheers

Dennis