Three Comets in the 
Morning Sky with last quarter Moon
October 26th, 2013

 
 Today
            started early. Up at 3am on this Saturday morning to shoot hopefully
            3 or 4 comets in the morning sky before sunrise. The last quarter
            (half) moon made it challenging especially for Comet Lovejoy
            which was very near both Procyon and the moon. Comet ISON was
            next, getting higher in the east which allowed more time on getting
            an image lined up. Comet Encke is tough - only half the aperture
            was over the wall of the observatory when I shot this one! Exploding
            comet Linear X1 was too low to get a shot of at this time.

            
Comet Lovejoy C/2013 R1
12.5" f/5 Newt
10 x 1m L, 6 x 1m RGB = 16 mins total

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Comet ISON  C/2012 S1
12.5" f/5 Newt
10 x 1m L, 3 x 1m RGB = 13 mins total

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Comet Encke  2P/Encke
12.5" f/5 Newt
6 x 1m RGB = 6 mins total
very noisy image - twilight ended

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Lens:  12.5" f/5 Home bult Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200 
Exposure:  See Images
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  2/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  41F
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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