Comet Catalina US10 meets M101
in the morning sky
January 16, 2016

 

            
 An uncommon
            close approach of a bright naked eye (barely) comet with a well
            known deep sky galaxy is an imagers delight. Here, we can see
            in this wide field view the comet at the upper right with both
            dust and gas tails and on the lower left is the Pinwheel Galaxy
            - M101 in Ursa Major.

            
The humidity was
            100% and the temp well below freezing at 3am when I shot this
            set, sheets of ice were coating everything and huge hairy frost
            crystals were growing all over the camera and telescope! Then
            the clouds moved in.



            


            
 Click
            here for a larger 1290 sized image


            
Field here
            is about 6 x 4 degrees


Instrument:  Canon 100 - 400L lens set for 200 mm f/5,
Platform:  Astrophysics AP1200 
Camera: Hutech Canon Xti at ISO 800
Exposure:  3 x 10m = 30m (+darks)
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing  4/10, Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  25F - Really bad frost!
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2
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