Comet image taken 2/4/09 at 4 am

            
The field of view at left is .75 degrees
wide and .5 degrees tall.

Select an image size for a larger view:

1024 x 768

1600 x 1200
            



            
Now only 20 days
            from closest approach, this 6th magnitude object glows a bright
            cyan color from ionized gasses as it speeds toward a rendezvous
            on Feb 25th. The extension seen on the left of the head is the
            comets dusty anti tail, as we are nearly in the orbital plane
            of the comet now. This image is tracked on the comets nucleus,
            and shows the stars speeding by in the 30 minutes it took me
            to shoot the comet. Small gaps in the star trails are due to
            the 8 second download time from the camera between exposures.

            
Processing:

            
R,G,and B images
            were stacked separately an then combined to a color image and
            gamma stretched. The shadow/highlight tool was used slightly
            to improve the anti tail contrast. To properly color the stars,
            a single RGB set was layered 30 times over this image combining
            with Hue. The stars were shifted to cover the trails individual
            components with the correct G2V color. A mask was used near the
            comets core to keep the color details of the comets central area
            from blurring. This the the first time I had ever tried this
            trick.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling
Guider: Meade DSI PRO  w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider
Exposure:  RGB = 10:10:10  (30x1m)
AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.11
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 10 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 9/10
Outside Temperature:  42 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL:  Calibration, deblooming (Starizona Debloomer), aligning, stacking
Gralaks Sigma:  Stacking
PixInsight:  Curves, Deconvolution, noise reduction
Photoshop CS2:  Curves, Color Correction, Cleanup

HOME   GALAXIES     EMISSION NEBS     REFLECTION NEBS   COMETS  
   GLOBULARS     OPEN CLUST     PLANETARIES     LINKS