Thanks
Yes Hyakutake was specacular, but it got to just 0.1 AU from the Earth, and was a gas rich comet, a bright blue gas tail and not a lot of a dust tail. It was so close it spanned a good part of the sky and was high up in a perfectly dark sky. Imagine how Mcnaught would look if it was as bright as it is now but high up in a dark sky!
Finally got to see the comet when the sun was below the horizon, even if was through cirrus cloud. Wonderfully bright and still about mag -3. This image is a crop from a 1sec ISO400 exposure made with the 350D + 200mm f2.8 lens (at f4.5) . Time was Jan 16.39 UT from Mt Stayplton in SE QLD. The crop has been reduced 50%. Can't wait for later in the week, comet should be amazing.
Hi all. I finally saw the comet this evening - just. It appeared between foreground clouds, and behind background clouds here in Brisbane. I looked at it through 10x50 binoculars, and tried taking a photo by holding a 4mp digital camera up to the binoculars. Unfortunately I didn't hold the camera steady enough for most of the images. The best image (and only suitable image) I cropped and attached. Is it possible to enhance the image to highlight the comet more? I fiddled around quickly in a version of Paint Shop Pro I have (version 5), but don't really know what I am doing. Can anybody recommend any (simple) steps to enhance the comet in the image?
Some geat images guys
This comet just keeps getting better.
Here are some pics taken from Davistown looking across Brisbane Waters on the Central Coast NSW using a Nikon D200 with a 70-200 ED lens and a 2xtele-converter.
Some great photo's here, wish I had a decent camera.
Had a go myself with an old Canon Powershot A40 so it's not a great shot.
The 'star' above P1 is a dead CCD pixel element.
Thanks for the suggestion, Ken. I will play around a bit with it tomorrow - I have to get up early for an appointment across town tomorrow.
And thanks for your your sample fix, Lee. What did you do to the picture? As for posting pictures with thumbnails (it looks like we both have only joined this month), you simply click the "Manage Attachments" button in the "Additional Options" section below where you type a reply. (Scroll down after clicking "Add reply".) A window opens up allowing you to browse files on your local hard drive and upload them. The thumbnail is done automatically for you. Easy!
I took many shots of the same FOV for each of the comet shots, to be able to stack them later, so should end up with nice big prints of reasonable quality which I'm really looking forward to. The above are raw individual frames.
I'm very happy with the results. Amazing comet. The other nights were "oh yeah, that's pretty good", tonight it was "wow, that's really a bright, big comet!".
heres my first from tonight - messed up a number of shots coz we was helping a few people observe the comet - but that was so incredibly rewarding and got a nice buzz from that anyway - love it when they see it for the first time
its too hot to go thru them all now - anyway Rogers p1 with venus is exactly how it should be
50 mm lens - 30 degree filed of view
She is getting better by the day!
Not quite sure yet how you post pictures here with the thumbnails et al.
