Photo of Comet 73/P Schwassmann-Wachmann in Corona Borealis taken on 22 April 2006,Clonee, D.15. 67x30sec's unguided with a Nextstar 11. Taken with a Canon 350D @ ISO 1600. Darks and bias, processed with Image Plusv2.75.




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Great close up shot Gary!

Great image Garry. Any idea of the field of view in that image or the focal lenght? It is really moving over the hour or so of imaging :shock:

Hi Gary that is a really nice shot good work regards Darren

Lovely close-up shot Gary, that guy is really moving !

Keith..

Nice bright detail there Gary. Can you tell me, when you say 'unguided', do you mean you just pointed the scope at it (via a guide scope or what?), and took a 30 second snap of the field of view?

Seanie.

Nice one Gary,

Nothing like seting up outside your front door is there

Now if you could only guide on it!

Later,

Jed.

Great image Gary, and boy is that comet rocketing across the sky!
You can see movement in the space of a few minutes!

I also had a go at this comet last night.
A difficult one to get due to its speed, a 3 minute exposure actually trailed the comet while the stars were fine.


I got rid of most of the light pollution, 19 images of varing exposures were stacked for this, hence some of the "stars" look more orange, due to the longer exposures picking up more skyglow.
Hopefully the end of the week will bring better weather and another chance at getting a better pic.
This was also the first time usiing the st4, I'm surprised at how easy it is to use, it works well but not perfectly yet, more experimentation will be needed to get it 100%.

Lovely colour shot Dave. It was really cool seeing the comet near the reverse Nova RCrB last night wasnt it?

How long do you reckon the tail was?

Clear skies

Martin,
The colours were an interesting surprise, its nice to be surprised sometimes.
As for the tail, in the scope I've got here its not particularly big as I'm working at f10, maybe a tiny bit bigger then in the image above.
A fast refractor might show more, then again in Tullamore on Friday night, it didnt look particularily big to me in the binos.
I'm much more impressed with its rapid proper motion. :shock:
It seems to be alot faster then recent previous comets, which makes sence as its relatively very near us.

Two great shots guys, well odne both of you.

Seanie: When gary says 30 seconds unguided, what he means is that each individual frame was unguided for 30 seconds. The 70 or so frames were then aligned and stacked in images plus (using the comet nucleus as the reference, giving the same effect as if the entire shot were guided on the comet. Pretty neat huh?

It is Dave, saves the whole allignment procedure when you want to get a 'quick snap'! Gary PM'd me the same (pretty much) explanation as you have just described.

Dave L,
nice shot too, like Martin said, nice colours!

Seanie: When gary says 30 seconds unguided, what he means is that each individual frame was unguided for 30 seconds. The 70 or so frames were then aligned and stacked in images plus (using the comet nucleus as the reference, giving the same effect as if the entire shot were guided on the comet. Pretty neat huh?

Thats pretty much how I do it also, I did contemplate trying to set the guider on the comet itself, but felt that since it was the first night using it, that it might be abit too much to try on the first go.
Also, the guider instructions states that sharp star points are preferred for accurate tracking, a diffuse cometary nucleus might not do the job.
Has anyone tried auto-guiding on a comet?