Running 4.5 Magnitude and still easily visible in the western sky after sunset, the comet is fading rapidly, but still bears a long blue ion tail and the peculiar green fan off the coma. This image was taken with the 5.5 inch schmidt at our observatory in Payson, which is at an elevation of 5150 feet and not near as dark as our Happy Jack observatory.

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The 5.5 inch Schmidt camera mounted on the side of my 12.5 inch newtonian. A 5x24mm finder acts as centering device for the field, which is set up just before the night shooting by aiming at Jupiter or Venus and centering the image in the film plane on a white piece of paper the size of film. Then the finder is pointed at the same object.

Instrument:  5.5 inch f/1.65 Schmidt Camera (About f/3 with film cartridge obstruction)
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200
Film:  Fuji 400 Xtra
Exposure:  4m
Filters:  NONE
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing 7/10, Transparency 7/10
Outside Temperature:  10 C
Processing: Photoshop, PW Pro.

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