Comet Lovejoy C/2017 E4
in the morning sky -with Full Moon in Sky
April 8, 2017

 This comet is just past its peak brightness around 7 - 8th magnitude, and shared the sky with the full moon blazing in the west. This shot was taken with the 6" f/3.6 Cometraker Schmidt Newtonian for 18 minutes of RGB frames, and had considerable issues with a blue background from the moon. The nicely teal colored head is followed by a fading fan-ray type gas tail, and a few background galaxies. The comet JUST cleared the observatory wall at 4:30 and only with the six inch mounted on top of the 10 inch.

 Click here for a larger 1290 sized image

Field here is about 3 x2 degrees
Lens: Meade 622 Cometracker Astrograph with Baader MPCC coma corrector Platform: Astrophysics AP1200 Camera: SBIG ST10XME Exposure: 18m Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 7/10, Transparency 8/10 Outside Temperature: 30F Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2 HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS