A very quick and dirty Comet C/2008 A1 McNaught - Update - A better shot
Just caught it before it disappeared last night. A single 1 minute shot with a quick colour balance (very quick before heading off to work ) and curves and levels. ED80 and modded 20D, ISO800. (no darks or flats )
Hopefully I'll get setup a bit earlier and get a better run of shots before it sets
Thanks everyone. It seems to have been quite a while since I posted anything (still have to go through the Duckadang images )
Phil, under the moon I could hardly see it with 10X50s but with the ED80 it was definitely there.
Here's 15x180sec @ ISO800, dark subtracted but no flats (I see I need to get a box working for the ED80), ED80 and WO 0.8 FR and Modded 20D. It was a challenge to try to take the moon out of it and still leave some tail. I'm don't know if the blue halo around the head is actually there or whether I created it with my processing. It seems to be there in the Raw images but gets stronger and stronger the more I tried to balance and highlight.
I certainly hope so Mike. it's getting higher each night, but I think its moving away from the sun (or us) so it might start to get dimmer. I'm looking forward to getting some longer shots though.
This was another discovery of R. H. McNaught, who is the discoverer or co-discoverer of 40 comets, this one on 2008 January 10. Its orbit is parabolic. It will come to perigee on September 3 and perihelion on September 29. Magnitude estimates in May yield an absolute magnitude of 5.2. In June it will brighten from apparent magnitude ~10.4 to ~9.2 as it moves ESE from Columbia into Pupis. It will reach ~6th magnitude in September. Now it is very far south and it too will be above the horizon only during daylight hours.
R.H. McNaught succeeded in the first comet discovery of the year 2008. On Jan. 10, 2008 he discovered a comet of magnitude 15.2 near the border of the constellations Puppis/Columba. Comet C/2008 A1 (McNaught) showed a medium-condensed 30" coma. It will pass perihelion in September 2008, probably reaching magnitude 7 (IAUC 8909 / MPEC 2008-C61). For mid-European observers it will appear on the evening sky at the end of October (at magnitude 8). Until the end of the year it will move through Ophiuchus and Hercules (at maximum altitudes of only 20°), thereby fading quickly to 11 mag.
The comet showed a higher-than-average evolution during spring 2008, according to the very few published observations. At the end of May it was estimated at magnitude 10.5, 1.5 mag brighter than expected. Thus it could be considerably brighter than the expected 8 mag at the time it appears for mid-European observers.
Comet C/2008 A1 (McNaught) is currently a southern hemispheric object residing in Centaurus, but as it reaches both closest approach to the Earth and perihelion with the Sun it late September, it will emerge in the northern skies and be visible for us as perhaps a 6th magnitude comet by October. A1 ends September in Libra and, perhaps, will be visible by then as a very early evening object. A1 is currently 7th mag. and could brighten slightly.
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) and curves and levels. ED80 and modded 20D, ISO800. (no darks or flats 
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, and it hasnt shown up in my pics with camera on tripod.
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