Sky this Week » Comets

Comet 29P Schwassmann-Wachmann on Feb 10

Vern — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:03:52 +0000

Comet 29P Schwassmann-Wachmann on Feb. 10 at 10:50 MST.

Equipment used Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, StellacamII video camera. Alligned, dark subtracted, and aligned with Registax5. Photoshop used to crop, brighten, and create animation. Sky was partly cloudy, transparency was good, not great. Turbulence between 5 and 6/10, no wind, location Louisville.

C/2007 N3 Lulin on Feb. 5, 2009

Vern — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:56:18 +0000

Here is an image of comet Lulin from this morning around 5:20 am. Easy to find visually in the scope and binoculars as it was just 1 degree east of 2.8 magnitude star Zubin in Libra. Noticably brighter than last I viewed it two weeks ago, probably just a bit dimmer than magnitude 6 now. Equipment used: Celestron Nexstar 11, F6.3 focal reducer, Canon Xti, 30 sec exposure, ISO1600. Ten images aligned and stacked with DeepSkyStacker. Nice and clear, no wind, temperature 38F, transparency very good, turbulence about 5/10, taken from light polluted backyard here in Louisville

Comet C2007 N3 (Lulin) on Jan. 19, 2009

Vern — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:29:59 +0000

Here is an image of comet lulin from around 6 am this morning.

Image taken this morning just before 6 am. Sky was mostly clear, transparency was excellent, no wind, temperature was 41 °F, and turbulence about 6/10. Equipment used, Nexstar 11 telescope, F3.3 focal reducer, Stellacam II at casegrain focus. Thirty images taken for each frame, Stellacam at 9/14 gain, integrate 128 frames. Dark subtracted, flat field adjusted, aligned and stacked with DeepSkyStacker. Brightness enhanced, cropped, and animated with Photoshop Elements.

Comet P/2008 X4 (Christensen) on Jan. 19, 2009

Vern — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:14:48 +0000

Some have reported P2008X4 is brighter than Lulin, that doesn’t appear to be true, at least not through the Stellacam II. As you can see P2008X4 is fairly dim, I’d guess around Mag 11.

Image taken this morning just before 6 am. Sky was mostly clear, transparency was excellent, no wind, temperature was 41 °F, and turbulence about 6/10. Equipment used, Nexstar 11 telescope, F3.3 focal reducer, Stellacam II at casegrain focus. Thirty images taken for each frame, Stellacam at 9/14 gain, integrate 128 frames. Dark subtracted, flat field adjusted, aligned and stacked with DeepSkyStacker. Brightness enhanced, cropped, and animated with Photoshop Elements.

Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) on Jan. 16, 2009

Vern — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:10:07 +0000

Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) was discovered July 11, 2007 by Quanzhi Ye, a student at Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou, China). This one is unusual in that moves in the opposite direction of the planets. Its trajectory is parabolic indicating that it may be on its first trip through the inner solar system. As it moves away from earth in late February, it will appear to move very fast, about 5 degrees per day. It is estimated to reach magnitude 4.5 in late February.

I was able to spot it in 10×50 binoculars, though difficult.
Image is from 5:49 to 6:06 am MST this morning. Mostly clear, occasional thin clouds, temperature 37 deg. F, no wind, location Louisville, CO. Transparency good, turbulence 5/10. Equipment: Nexstar 11, F6.3, Canon Xti Med Jpeg, 20 sec exposures, ISO 1600. Dark subtracted and aligned with DeepSkyStacker-3.2.1, levels adjusted with Photoshop Elements.

Comet C/2008C1 (Chen-Gao) on Feb 10, 2008

Vern — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:51:52 +0000

Comet C/2008C1 (Chen-Gao) was passing through a beautiful star field with several small clusters when these images were taken. It showed up quite well through the eyepiece of 14 inch dob. The comet was in Cassiopeae. Estimated brightness is around magnitude 13.

Image was taken at dark sky site we call Roland’s Astro Corral on a private ranch in the Pawnee Grasslands about 40 miles east of Fort Collins, CO with Celestron Nexstar11, F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II video camera at 14/14 gain, integrate 128 (4 sec), acquired 40 frames for each image. Temperature was around 25°F, no wind, transparency was excellent, and turbulence was 6/10.

Comet 46P/Wirtanen on Dec 12, 2007

Vern — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:22:51 +0000

Comet 46P/Wirtanen is a short period (5.4 year) comet discovered in January 1948 by Carl Wirtanen at the Lick Observatory. According to the JPL Horizons Ephemeris it is currently magnitude 13.1, several other sites have it at magnitude 11.5 and 11.6.

Image taken from light polluted Louisville, CO with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, F3.3 focal reducer, and Astrovid Stellacam II video camera (9/14 gain, 128 integration (4 sec), 0 gamma), 30 frames taken at 6:29 to 6:31 pm and 6:40 to 6:42 pm. Images flat field corrected, dark subtracted, aligned, stacked, and histogram adjusted with Registax4. Two resulting images were then aligned, text added, brightness adjusted, cropped, and animated with Photoshop Elements2. Sky was mostly clear, temperature 29°F, no wind, high humidity, transparency very good, and poor turbulence, maybe 4/10.

Comet 8P/Tuttle on Dec 9, 2007

Vern — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:27:50 +0000

Comet 8P Tuttle is predicted to brighten to about magnitude 6 in early January. Its currently maybe 9.8 or so. My third try on this one. Its getting a bit further south now so its a bit easier for those of us with equatorial mounts than it was last month.

Image taken from light polluted Louisville, CO with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Stellacam II video camera, 9/14 gain, 128 frames integration (~4 sec exposure). Registax4 used to dark subtract, flat field correct, align, and stack 30 frames, 75% quality, #2 wavelet at 2.4 to sharpen slightly, histogram corrected from level 8 to 200. Enhanced, aligned and animation created with Photoshop Elements2.

Comet 17P Holmes on Nov 1

Vern — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:52:43 +0000

Comet 17P Holmes is still a fascinating object to view. The primary coma surrounding the nucleus appears to be forming a tear drop shape pointing to the southwest (lower right). I’ve yet to view in dark skies.

Image taken from Louisville, CO on Nov 1, 2007 at 11:03 pm MDT with Celestron Nexstar11 at prime focus using Canon Xti camera (15 sec exposure, ISO 1600). Registax4 used to align and stack 20 frames. Enhanced and cropped with PSCS3. The sky was clear, very good transparency, no wind, temperature 38°F, and turbulence 6/10.

Comet 17P Holmes (Oct 24 11 pm MDT)

Vern — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:24:18 +0000

Comet 17P Holmes was magnitude 16.9 and then brightened to naked eye visibility. It appears to me to be about the same brightness as Epsilon Perseus or about magnitude 2.9. It is a beautiful object to view in the eyepiece. A small, bright, almost starlike, center nucleas surrounded by very distinct coma. The yellowish color is very noticable. Its one of those objects that photos fail to capture, or at least any that I’ve seen thus far. There is a large variation in brightness between the brilliant core and surrounding nucleus which makes it difficult for astrophotographers. Our eyes capture the variation quite easily.

Image taken with a Celestron Nexstar11 Telescope and Phillips 840K webcam (yes a webcam!). Sky was clear, transparency very good, turbulence very good 6/10, temperature 54°F, no wind, bright, nearly full moon.