Comet, I think

I havent seen this comet so far, does it have any visible tail yet ??

S'cuse my ignorance :oops: but is that an actual photograph of the comet or is it a picture of the sky with the comet put on it? It must be the bright star I was looking at between the comet and Orion.

Hi Bill,

No that's not a photograph, it a screenshot of Starry Night, a planterium program.

Gordon,
Copy the url to the message body and highlight it. Then, instead of clicking on the "URL" button, click on "Img"
And, while I'm at it, try not to put a fullstop at the end of the url!
It's a very easy mistake to make, which is why I ALWAYS have to edit my own posts two or three times to correct little things like this.
Clear skies,

Thanks Michael. I'll remember that for future occasions.

Gordon

Bill

P.S. Starry Night Enthusiast 4.5 is currently free on the coverdisk of the Jan-05 edition of PC Pro magazine.

I saw the comet last night at 1:30 and tried imaging it with the Cannon 300D attached to the 70mm f10 Skylux. The Skylux tripod (not extended)was on the equitorial platform I have made for my Dobsonian. This allows some basic tracking. However the strong wind caused alot of problems as the Skylux mount was not really steady enough for those conditions.
Anyway here is the image:-


Visually the comet's coma extended to the two stars above it and the overall impression was of a slightly bigger, round version of the Andromeda Galaxy. I would put the magnitude at 4.8 to 4.5. No tail was visible.

Three 30 sec., ISO 1600 exposures were stacked for this image which shows 1/2 degree square of sky. (the size of the full moon). I was also impressed to see stars down to magnitude 12 on the image!

I need to do some modifications to the Dob' to allow the Cannon reach focus, anyone have a spare low profile 2" focuser??

I also tried one shot of the Orion Nebula. I was impressed with the colour but there was too much shake from the wind.


Michael Scully, KAC