Now riding high in the morning sky just before the onset of twilight, this 7th magnitude object continues to exhibit a plentiful amount of emission from CN, and other active molecules. The lime green color imparted to the comets coloration from these ionized gasses provides an excellent opportunity for the CCD astrophotographers to get a richly colored image of the comets coma and nucleus. There is also a very faint blue ionized ray type tail extending to the lower left as well. For this image taken on February 3rd, five 2 minute exposures were combined by registering the nucleus and allowing the stars to trail. The RGB data was taken right afterwards and consisted of four 2 minute exposures through RGB filters.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
CCD Camera:  SBIG237
Exposure:  LRGB = 10:8:8:8 (RGB Binned 2x2)
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing 8/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  25 F
CCD Temperature:  -25 F
Processing:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, PW Pro.