Comet Lulin again, March 1st early hours

Thanks guys, it is a cool sight

what's your guess on apparent length?

Seanie, I would guess visually the it was about 1/4 of a degree in length, maybe I did'nt have enough magnification at 9x with my binos ?

Do you find the 300mm L lens good for this kind of shooting

Actually it was a 200mm lens Seanie, the quality is great believe me, but you really need a very good mount for tracking, even with my SCT, I could get about only one minute max unguided, great pictures, but as you say expensive. T-mounting the camera probably will require a guided mount for astrophotgraphy, except whereby you are shooting the Moon or something else very bright, with no motor, you'll see trailing after about 5 seconds or so as a general rule for any kind of scope, however if you have a motor, you could get away with anything from 10-30 second depending on how good tracking/polar alignment is...

(although still sick, it'd probably be the last one I'd shoot!)

Hope you get better soon Frank, still, have a look out the window with the binos if you can, it's near M44 on thursday and friday night this week : cheer:

Keith.

I also got a look at Lulin that night. We had quite good transparency up in Louth once the moon had set -- NELM 6 and a SQM reading of 20.7. Under those conditions in 18x70's I'd estimate the tail is visible for about 1°.



Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Thanks Keith!

Fabulous sketch Jeff.
Very nice work.

Michael.

Lulin is currently in the same binocular field as the carbon star X Cnc (HR3541). Go out and take a look if you get a chance....

Tomorrow should also be interesting, with Lulin passing the Beehive Cluster.

(The moon is doing no favors, though, nearly washing out Lulin's tail even in 18x70s.)

I did a sketch which I'll post tomorrow.

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

And the sketch: